


Evolution

by Emma



Series: The Celtic Men [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-09 09:35:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 24,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma/pseuds/Emma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the first part of what turned out to be a whole new AU.  Owen and Gwen have died at Grey's hand, and Rhys has chosen to forget. But the monsters follow him to his new home...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

           The dream is the same every night.

            _I am standing by the fountain, waiting for Gwen. Christmas lights are twinkling, and in one of the cafes a band is playing a really crappy version of Jingle Bells Rock. I'm wearing gloves; I notice them because I almost never do, and Gwen always complains about my cold hands. Not that she minds too much when I run them up her thighs. Randy girl, my Gwen._

_Suddenly, she's there, stepping off a kerb I'd swear was empty before. The thing is, it doesn't surprise me; somehow I've been expecting it. She's arm in arm with a handsome young bloke in a dark blue suit. They're leaning towards each other, laughing. I smile too, so proud that this gorgeous woman chose me to be her husband and someday father of her children._

_Behind them are the spare, weasel-faced doctor and the stunning Asian woman, bickering amiably as they usually do. And behind them, the man in the long coat, looming over them like a guardian or a stalker. He notices me first and taps Gwen on the shoulder, pointing me out. She looks in my direction and smiles the soft, sexy smile that's just for me. The young bloke laughs and gives her a gentle shove between the shoulder blades. Gwen starts running towards me..._

_And the whole world blows up._

            The psychiatrist told me later that I hadn't been there when Gwen was killed. The dream was just my way of managing my grief. That never made any sense to me; why would reliving my wife's death every night help me? And who were those people with her? The shrink explained that they weren't real. They represented _aspects of my own psyche,_ to which I said _bollocks, I don’t have an Asian computer geek and a guy with a superhero complex in my psyche._   After a couple of go 'rounds, though, I realized he had already made up his mind, facts be damned, and since he had the power to keep me in hospital for as long as he wanted, I kept my mouth shut and nodded a lot. After he cut me loose I tracked down Gwen's partner and asked him.

            Andy Davidson could never lie worth a damn.

            So I figured those people were friends of Gwen's from the Special Ops counter-terrorist branch. God knows, plenty of coppers and firefighters died that day. 

            Two months after the attacks I decided to leave Cardiff. I couldn't stand the feeling that Gwen was going to be there every time I turned the corner or opened a door. I was drinking myself to sleep every day and screwing up at work and worst of all I was losing my temper and using my fists a little too readily. After the second time of waking up with bloody fists and a black hole where my memory should have been, I had had enough. I needed peace, time, and hard work.

             Three days later I drove my Tad's old Vauxhall into Woodstall Grange's stable yard. Eddie Dingell was waiting for me, looking much as he had done twenty years before, when he had caught a punk from the village sneaking in to look at the foals. Instead of calling the constabulary he had given me an after-school job mucking out the stables and rubbing down the horses after their training sessions. I spent every day for three years – until the day my Tad moved us all to Cardiff – learning everything I could from Eddie Dingell.

             When I called him all he had said was _get your arse down here, there's stalls as need mucking out._

             Woodstall Grange was more than a successful stud and training operation, though that was the show piece. There was a big organic produce farm that supplied fancy restaurants all over Wales, and a small distillery that sold all its products by subscription to very rich folk from New York to Dubai. When Thomas Woodstall found out about my experience in the lorry business I traded my shovel for scheduling software. Soon after, he put me to work on the breeding and training records. Four years later, when Eddie decided to retire and go back to Ireland, Thomas offered me the farm manager job.

             It was a good life. I worked hard from sunrise to long past sunset. Four or five times a year I travelled to the continent or to America, usually accompanying a plane full of horses, but I did have some time for sightseeing. I learned to play chess well enough to give Thomas and father Goodwin, our local Catholic priest, a good run for their money. I drank water, although on special occasions I allowed myself a small glass of Woodstall single malt. Most nights I slept the sleep of the just or the exhausted, and I would go on for months without waking up in a cold sweat, watching Gwen die as she walked towards me with a smile on her face. Once a year, on the anniversary of her birthday, I would go to Cardiff and put flowers on her grave.

             And then the monsters came to Woodstall Grange, and I found that everything I thought was real and true was a complete lie.


	2. Chapter 2

Spring had come early after a hard winter. The stable yard was a sea of mud, and it was driving some of the horses barmy. Thoroughbreds tend to be very fussy about surface conditions, and a surprising number of them hate the feeling of cold, wet mud underfoot. One in particular, Giles Blacksmith – Blackie when he was home with his greedy snout in his feed bag – would do his level best to kick the crap out of any groom who tried to get him out to the practice track.  
  
       Blackie was an unlovely bastard even in the best of circumstances; temperamental and demanding, one of those horses whose only good quality was the ability to run like the wind. He hated most human beings, including his owner and trainer, and barely tolerated his jockey. The only person he loved was Mike Greene, his groom. Mike could get Blackie to do anything. Unfortunately, Mike was away on holiday, and that made Blackie even crankier. Most of the stable crew was giving Blackie a wide berth.  
  
        "When the hell is Mike coming back?” groused Thomas as he rubbed the spot on his shoulder where Blackie had head-butted him as Thomas tried to muck out his stall. It was the sort of thing Thomas would do. He was a hands-on owner, and he wouldn't ask anyone to do anything he wouldn't do himself, even dealing with a fractious sod of a horse. “I swear that bastard will live in shit up to his hocks until Mike gets back.”  
  
       “No, he won't.” I presented him with a generous helping of his best vintage. “Blackie's worth abut a quarter million clear profit to Woodstall every year. More when they put him out to stud. He's royalty and we'll treat him as such.”  
  
       He tossed back the whiskey and picked up the spreadsheets I'd placed in front of him. “When you're right you're right, mate. Let's see about this schedule.”  
  
       Thomas and I spent the evening of the last Friday of every month going over the farm accounts. Well, that's what he called it, but it was more of a planning and strategy session. From the inside there's precious little glamour to the horse business. It's bloody hard work and a lot of the time you barely break even. Breeders and trainers were lucky to have one Blackie in their lifetime. On top of the horses, Woodstall had the farm and the distillery; two thirds of my work was logistics.  
  
       We were almost finished when we heard the commotion in the stables. Something was spooking the horses. Above the terrified whinnying of the mares we could hear the challenge screams of the stallions and the heavy thud of their hooves against wood as they tried to break out of their stalls. Even more alarming was the frenzied barking of Pat and Mike, the stable dogs, two corgis of a very steady, even disposition. If they were raising hell, something was really wrong.  
  
       We charged down the back corridor to the kitchen garden door. On the way I snatched up Eddie's old walking stick, a five-foot chunk of ash banded with iron. It was a heavy thing and I had used it with some success a couple of times to break up fights.  
  
        It was a clear night, and there was a nice moon, which was a blessing because the yard lights were all out. Any other night we would have been knocked off our feet by the grooms running in from their rooms in the converted barn on the other side of the stables, but it was payday and most of the boys and girls were out blowing their packet. Ollie, the night watchman, was nowhere to be seen, and that was an added worry.  
  
       Thomas skidded into the stables half a step ahead of me. He tried the light switch, but it wasn't working. Muttering a few curses, he made for the tack room, where the fuse box was. I made my way by moonlight towards the back. Blackie's stall was at the far end. He sounded so out of control I was afraid he would hurt himself. As I reached him, the overhead lights started to turn on. They were rigged to turn on in a sequence that would allow the horses' eyes to get used to the brilliance. As the light over Blackie's stall came on, I caught a glimpse of a figure scuttling off into the woods beyond the yard.  
  
        It was man-shaped, but it wasn't human. The head was oversized and deformed. Its scalp was covered with a thin layer of spiky hair. It moved lightning fast, shoulders forwards and down and knees bent, a bit like the werewolf in the old black and white films.  
  
       The sight made my heart pound fit to burst out of my chest, but it wasn't fear. It was recognition. I knew this thing, whatever it was. I knew it had huge eye sockets and vicious fangs. I knew it disliked daylight. I knew it was a stone-cold killer, even of its own kind. I knew men had abused it, and I had once felt very sorry for it.  
  
       _Weevil_.  
  
       The moment the name popped into my head I felt a sharp pain on my left temple and distinctly heard the sound of a door slamming shut.


	3. Chapter 3

           “Rhys? You okay, mate?”

             I shook my head to clear it a bit. I hung on to the name – _weevil_ – because I was absolutely sure that if I didn’t, if I didn’t repeat it to myself over and over again until it was burned into my memory, I would have forgotten it in the morning.

             “Rhys?”

             “Yeah. Sorry, Thomas. I thought I saw someone run into the woods.” I wasn’t going to tell him about the weevil. Somehow I knew that t would be a really big mistake. “We’ll need to search tomorrow.”

             “Tomorrow hell.” He started for the door. “I want to get my hands around that…”

             “Thomas, no!” I pulled him back. “We need to find Ollie and make sure he’s okay. We need to check the horses, too, just in case whoever it was got into the stalls.”

             “Oh, God. I need to call Euan and report this, otherwise we’re going to have trouble with the insurance company.”

             “You go ahead. Ask Euan if he can swing by the pub and pick up a couple of the more sober guys. We’re going to need some help.”

             I waited until he had gone back into the house before I set out to retrace Ollie’s usual circuit. My main concerns were basically the stables and the cellars, mostly the cellars, because, in spite of all the fifth rate Dick Francis imitators, there’s damn little reason to steal a thoroughbred these high-tech days. You couldn’t race it and you couldn’t breed it; that left ransom, but those guys were professionals, and this certainly wasn’t. Besides, there was the weevil.

             Woodstall Grange is built like a squared-off eight, with the living quarters in the center and a group of buildings on either side arranged around courtyards. Thomas calls it Oxford bastard architecture. Me, I’ve never even visited Oxford so what do I know.  The cellars are on the furthest side of the other square, as far away from the stables as possible. Good single malt needs to age in peace and quiet. Ollie made a complete tour of the courtyards three or four times a night, but mostly he monitored everything from a small room in the business office where live views from the surveillance cameras fed into four monitors.

  _“Privacy? What’s that?” Gwen laughs as she presses me against the wall, hands playing wicked games inside my trousers. “If the coppers don’t see us, Toshiko will. What Tosh can do with a CCTV camera is downright obscene.”_

             The sudden vision froze me in mid-step. Tosh. Toshiko Sato. The beautiful Asian woman in my dream had a name. She was shy, and sweet, and brainy, and loved expensive shoes, and she and Gwen used to have girls’ nights where they gorged on Belgian chocolate and got pissed on champagne.

             This time when the pain hit, I was ready. Rubbing my temple, I repeated her name over and over like a talisman. The sound of the door shutting was a distant, impotent thing.

             By the time I finished the circuit, I was really worried. Ollie wasn’t anywhere I’d looked, and I’d looked everywhere I could think of. I hoped Euan had been able to find some of our lads in a fit condition, because we were going to have to search the woods, weevil or no weevil. I’d be damned if I left Ollie at the mercy of that thing.

             Euan and Thomas were standing by the stable door when I got there. If you never saw them side by side, it would never occur to you that they were brothers. Thomas was all dark Welsh while Euan was ridiculously Norman, hawk nose and all. But like this – well, like my mam-gu used to say, blood will tell.

             “No sign of Ollie, then?” Euan sighed. We’re going to have to search the woods.”

             “Were you able to get any of the lads?”

             “Yeah. Peter, Graham, Lily, and Johnysais came back with me. They’re searching the outbuildings now, but so far, nothing…”

             A high-pitched scream cut  him off. It had come from behind the grooms’ quarters. We ran across the yard, Euan muttering curses at the mud sucking at his regulation shoes. As we turned the corner, we all skidded to a stop, partly because Euan’s cop instincts kicked in and he put out his arm to hold us back, but mostly because we had to give our brain a chance to catch up with our eyes.

             Ollie lay in a heap against the side of the old through the lads used for wiping off the worst of the muck before going indoors. The left side of his head was all bloody, and blood had gushed down his anorak, his pants, everywhere. And cradled tenderly in his arms, wrapped in an old horse blanket I remembered buying myself, was a baby.


	4. Chapter 4

            “You were right.” Euan grabbed the last scone and drowned it in marmalade. “We found Ollies’ tracks out by the bridge road. He might have been meeting someone. The old battleaxe says she saw a white lorry turning onto the road at about seven thirty.”

             “Did Mrs. Jones” Thomas emphasized the name gently, “notice the driver?”

             “No. She was doing dishes. Caught a glimpse of its lights out her kitchen window.” Euan poured himself some coffee. “Ollie obviously was expecting the…ah…delivery, because he took the blanket with him. He takes the baby then cuts across the campion meadow and through the woods… But why? All he had to do was walk back along the road for less than a mile and he would be here. Why tromp through the woods in this weather?”

             “Ollie was a local, right?” I asked.

             “Doesn’t get any more local-er.” Anger showed in Thomas’s eyes. “His grandfather worked for mine, and his mum and tad for mine. Ollie was family.”

             “He must have been running from someone, then.” Or something, I thought, but carefully didn’t say. “He must have thought he could lose them in the woods.”

             “Rhys, mate, I should just let you do my job.” Euan made a face. “I should have seen that.”

             “You’re exhausted.” Thomas said. “Why don’t you crash for a while?”

             “I might just take you up on the offer. As soon as they take the body away.”

             Poor Ollie’s body was still behind the barn. The local police surgeon, Dr. Barnes, was on another call. Euan and his sergeant had stayed to wait for him, as per regulations; the joys of rural policing. Everyone in the yard was trying to do their jobs without thinking about the gruesome thing under the horse blanket. The baby was upstairs, being watched over by Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper, who, drawing on her experience as a mother of six and grandmother of fifteen, had pronounced her perfectly healthy, fed her some warm milk, and set her down to drool on Thomas’s antique quilt.

             “Rhys,” Euan said, “last night you saw someone going into the woods. Could you give us a description?”

             I’d been thinking about that for a while. Not warning Euan was not an option, but somehow I didn’t think _there is a monster in the woods_ would inspire much confidence. True, Euan and Thomas had known me for a while, and they were shrewd judges of character. I could tell them the truth and they would defer judgment, at least for a while.

             But I still hesitated. Part of me knew there was a reason, but I couldn’t remember it. No, that wasn’t quite it. Something was keeping me from remembering. _Someone, somehow, had simply locked part of my life away inside my head._

             I was so shaken by the revelation that I didn’t even realize there was something wrong until I saw Euan and Thomas bolt from the room. I started to follow them when a sound near the kitchen garden door caught my attention. Hefting Eddie’s walking stick I walked out of the kitchen as quietly as I could. Right by the laundry room door the back corridor made a sharp turn, and if you stood flat against the wall someone coming into the garden couldn’t see you, but you could see them in the mirror hanging above the small table where we all dropped our keys at night.

             I didn’t have long to wait. The door opened and two men stepped inside. They wore black from head to toe, ski masks included. Professionals they weren’t. The first one tripped over Mrs. Hill’s wellies and slapped his greasy paw on the wallpaper to stop himself from going head first into the wall. The print was visible to the naked eye. The second one grabbed him by the back of the jacket and pointed towards the inside of the house with a nasty-looking gun.

             “Move it!” he hissed. “We got to find that baby!”

             I waited until they were level with me then swung the stick like a baseball bat, catching the second burglar across the shoulders. The blow spun him around and right into the wall with a satisfyingly meaty thwack. I kicked the gun out of his hand. The other one, realizing something was wrong, started to turn. The stick caught him on his side and he folded over. I followed up with a sharp down stroke on the back of the head. He crumpled to the floor and lay still.

             I could hear sounds of fighting outside. Under any other circumstances I would be heading that way, but I needed to make sure the baby was safe. Someone was desperate to get their hands on her, and that was enough for me. I headed for the stairs.

             I heard the soft pop and felt the pain on my back at the same time. As my knees folded, suddenly too weak to hold me up, I could see the guy I had smashed into the wall coming towards me, gun in hand. I had forgotten rule number one: never leave an enemy behind you. I lay still, waiting, knowing I only had one chance.

             He leaned down to press the gun to the back of my head. When I thought he was off-balance, I heaved up, turning over and smashing the walking stick between his legs. He howled and went down on top of me.

             “Rhys! Rhys!” I could hear Thomas running down the corridor. “Jesus!” He pulled the burglar off me. “Are you all right?”

             I didn’t even dignify that with an answer. “Call.”

             “What?”

             I realized my voice was too weak and tried again. “Torchwood. Call Torchwood. Euan would know. Tell them Rhys says… there are weevils in the woods.”


	5. Chapter 5

        Waking up after being shot and then shot full of pain killers, muscle relaxants, antibiotics, and God knows what else is not a pleasant experience. In the movies, the brave hero opens his eyes in a pleasant room to find the beautiful, plucky heroine – Nicole Kidman or maybe Siena Miller – looking down at him with admiration. Reality’s not that kind. I woke up to find Andy Davidson and Ianto Jones at the foot of my bed looking like the Inland Revenue come to collect.

        “When did you regain your memory?” Ianto asked.

        The cool, disinterested tone pissed me off. “You bloody bastard. You steal my memories, you bloody _exile_ me from everything and everyone I know, and you swan in here and think you can start asking questions?”

        He looked at me for a long moment, and then turned to Andy. “I’ll send Martha in.”

            I watched him leave, and couldn’t resist a few more digs. “You were supposed to be my friend, and Gwen’s. And you let him do this? The faithful Ianto, always helping his Captain, no matter how dirty the job?”

        He seemed about to stop for a moment, but kept moving without looking back. The click of the lock behind him sounded like a gunshot. I flopped back against the pillow, blinking back tears.

        “You stupid git.”

        I looked at Andy. Torchwood had changed him in the same way it had changed Gwen. Gone was the over-eager coltishness, the easily read expression; in their place was cool self-assurance and a studied blankness that would have done a professional gambler proud. That didn’t keep me from realizing he was angry enough to rip my head off.

        “Sticking to Torchwood, right, Andy? No matter what they do. Didn’t take you long to step into Gwen’s shoes.”

        He examined me like a scientists studying a particularly exotic bug under a microscope. Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him. He pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down.

        “When Gwen died you went crazy. Insisted you wanted to forget everything except Gwen. Ianto begged you not to. He said it would be like losing Gwen all over again. You didn’t care. You wanted out of Torchwood, you said. Sometimes you even went on tirades against Gwen for choosing us over you. You were a right fucking mess, Rhys.”

        “Jesus, Andy.”

        “Then you tried to kill yourself. Don’t look at me like that. If you don’t believe me I can show you the CCTV tapes. We have them neatly filed in Archives. You jumped into the river with your pockets filled with rocks. You nearly did it too, except Toshiko had taken to tracking you down on CCTV, and she warned Jack. Two days after you got out of hospital Ianto retconned you. It was his suggestion that you call Eddie Dingell.”

        “Why?”

        “Because you needed a fresh start, and you’d always talked about Woodstall as one of the best times of your life.” He leaned back. “Ianto thought you needed a chance, to, well, get back to being you.”

        I rubbed my eyes. I had never felt so ashamed in my whole life. “Why can’t I remember that? I remember weevils, and the pterodactyl, and even John fucking Hart, but I can’t remember Ianto’s kindness.”

        Andy shrugged. “Retcon affects everyone differently. Some people never get back all their memories. Some get it at different speeds, like their brain is choosing what’s important, and handing that over first.”

        The door opened and a woman in a lab coat came in. My brain supplied her name: _Martha Jones_. She was an UNIT doctor, and a companion of the alien called the Doctor, and one of Jack’s closest friends.

        “Hello, Rhys.”

        “Doctor Jones. Nice to see you again.”

        She smiled, and it was like the sun had broken through the clouds. “Really?”

        “Yeah. It’s like coming home, you know?” I remembered she was married to another doctor. “How’s Tom?”

        Her smile turned heartbreakingly sad. “Tom died two years ago. Plane accident in Africa.”

        I stuttered out some of the useless words everyone says at moments like these. She patted my hand. “I wasn’t able to come to Cardiff for Gwen’s funeral and by the time I did, you were gone. I’m sorry too. I like Gwen.”

        “Thank you.” Trying to get us past the awkwardness of the moment I asked the question that had been forefront in my mind since waking up. “So, am I allowed to ask what’s going on? Or am I to be retconned again?”

        “That’s not fair,” she chided me gently. “You chose it for yourself.”

        “But I’m not Torchwood any longer, and I? I don’t think anyone will ask my opinion.”

        “You’d be surprised. Can you sit up?”

        Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a slim wand with a bulbous head and a row of buttons set along its side. She ran it up and down my arm, lingering over the bandages.

        “You’re clear.”

        “Clear of what?”

        “Infection.” Ianto stood by the door. “Martha, UNIT has sent over those lab reports you wanted, and Jack wants a progress report on them by this afternoon.”

        She looked at him as if infected with my suspicions. “And you?”

        “I’m going to debrief Rhys. Don’t worry, Martha. Even if I wanted to retcon him, Jack wouldn’t let me. Go on, get. He’ll be fine."

 


	6. Chapter 6

          “Ianto…”

          “Leave it, Rhys.”

          “No. I need to say this before… well, whatever. I’m sorry. I remember some things and not others… and if I’m going to lose it all again this is my only chance of saying it.”

           “You think we are going to retcon you again?”

           I shifted, trying to make myself a little more comfortable. Whatever they had given me was wearing off, and a dull ache was starting to spread across my shoulder and down my arm. He noticed and came over to adjust the pillows behind me so I could sit up a bit more and ease the pressure.

           “Thanks. About the retcon,” I thought about it a bit more, “I would do it if I were you. Less trouble in the long run.”

           “Maybe, although circumstances have changed. After our most recent encounter with the Daleks, a lot of people have a better grasp on reality.”

           Andy stood up. “In any case, it’s Jack’s decision and he’s a sentimental sod when it comes to family. Sit down before you drop, Ianto. You’ve been going nonstop for a week. I’ll go help Martha.”

           Ianto sank on the vacated chair. “Thanks, Andy.”

           I took a good look at him. Andy was right. Ianto looked just about knackered. Underneath the exhaustion, however, he was still the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Banana Boat used to say that the only reason regular blokes liked Ianto was because Ianto thought of himself as a regular bloke.

           “I wonder what happened to him.”

            “Who?”

            “Banana Boat.”

            “Copper. Splott beat. Does rather a good job, actually. Asks about you once in a while.”

            “I’ll have to call him one day, if…”

            “Oh, don’t be such a pillock!” He waved his hand at me impatiently. “You’re not going to be retconned. Jack wouldn’t have it in the first place. And besides we might, no, we will, need your help over this.”

            I heard his words, but my eyes were distracted by a flash of gold. I grabbed his hand and stared at the braided band on his finger.

            “Whoa. So you and Captain Gorgeous made it legal, then?”

            “Three years ago. He insisted.”

            My God, the man was blushing!

            “I’m glad for you both. Gwen would have been over the moon. Once she got past her crush on Jack, and yes, I knew all about it, all she did was worry about you, what with Jack having, well, a reputation no mother would want for her child’s intended...”

            We grinned at each other like loons.  It felt good to be able to talk about Gwen to someone who knew her well enough to know that she could be a right pain in the arse at times and loved her anyway.

            “Ianto,” I said, still hesitant, “did I really see a weevil out in the Woodstall woods?”

            “Oh, yeah. We started getting reports of weevil attacks as far as St. David’s about six weeks ago. We managed to catch up with most of them and then backtracked them to a research facility outside Carmarthen.”

            “Shit.”

            “Our feelings exactly.” He sighed. “What the hell is it about us humans that makes us want to experiment on other beings?”

            “Probably the same nastiness that makes us experiment on each other. Did you figure out what they’re doing?”

            “Maybe. The weevils we caught up to were all either dead or dying. When Martha autopsied them she found out they were hybrids.”

            “Hybrid what? …Duw.”

            “Yeah. The worst thing is, according to Martha they were basically babies. The human genes the bastards inserted in the weevil embryos control growth, and they were artificially mutated to accelerate weevil development at the speed of invasive cancer cells. These poor kids were meant to grow fast and die young. Five to ten years at most.”

            “What the hell for?”

            “Jack says one of two things. Either experimental subjects, you know, like lab rats. You can do several generations’ worth of observations in a couple of decades. Or they’re being bred as soldiers. Cannon fodder.”

            “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Breeding weevils like lab rats was about the most disgusting idea I’d ever come across. Maybe they weren’t human, but that was no reason to treat them like they had no value as living things, either.

            And then it hit me, and I had to keep my stomach from turning inside out.

            “Ianto, what does this have to do with the baby?”

            The look on his face reminded me that everything wasn’t all kindness and reason with this guy.

            “Turns out the experiments went both ways. Human embryos were given weevil genes. Only a few survived birth. Until yesterday, we hadn’t found one.”


	7. Chapter 7

          Getting me out of hospital this time was just a matter of getting the A&E doctor to sign a couple of forms releasing me into Martha’s care. Watching her con the hapless, overworked bloke I wondered if she had taken lessons from Captain Gorgeous or whether it was a case of like calling to like. It seemed to me a lot of Torchwood folk could lie through their teeth without batting an eye.

           Just as well I had a pretty good built-in bullshit detector.

           I napped most of the way back to Woodstall; the Torchwood monster SUVs are nothing if not comfortable. Martha insisted on riding in the back with me, to keep a medical eye on me. When Andy snarked that a flesh wound in the shoulder was probably much less painful than some horses’ kicks, he was told to mind his own business. Ianto wisely kept his mouth shut, but he rolled his eyes at me as he held the door.

           At one point I woke up to find that I had fallen against Martha and was sleeping with my head tucked into her shoulder. I had been dreaming of walking in a field of dark-red roses that someone had dusted with cinnamon and gold dust. As I came fully awake I realized it was Martha’ perfume I was smelling.

           “It’s you,” I mumbled.

           She chuckled. “Are you quite awake, Rhys?”

           I could feel my tongue tripping over itself even before I opened my mouth. “Ah… yeah. Sorry, I was just…”

           “It’s me, what?” she interrupted my blathering. At my confused look, she explained. “Right before you woke up you said _it’s you._ ”

           “Ah… your perfume. I was dreaming of a field of roses sprinkled with cinnamon and gold. Weird, eh?”

           “Spicy roses. They grow in one of the moons of Isshasar and bloom only once every hundred years. The perfume is ridiculously expensive. The Doctor gave me about a quart for my birthday three years ago.” She giggled. “It’s guaranteed never to lose strength. I’ll be wearing it when I’m ninety. The man has no clue.”

           I lay back, grinning. Everything was back to normal. At least, Torchwood-normal.

           The stable yard was suspiciously quiet when we arrived. In my experience the appearance of Torchwood was preceded by explosions and followed by a month’s worth of cleanup. Woodstall seemed to be going through its usual paces at its usual speed. The only signs of invasion was the customized lorry parked on the space usually reserved for our horse transport. I figured Captain Gorgeous was somewhere around, charming everyone in sight into doing whatever he wanted them to do.

           I was getting really worried.

           I trusted Ianto, and Andy, and even Martha. In spite of what they did for a living, they were as human as I was, and pretty decent folk in their own way.  Jack Harkness was a different story altogether. Gwen had told me about Jasmine, and Tommy, and Flat Holm; Jack, she’d said, made hard decisions because his devotion was to the human race, not to individuals. I didn’t trust Jack not to make a hard decision about the baby if he thought it was necessary.

           Thomas opened the door before we even had a chance to knock. He had that wild look in his eyes I used to get when I got dragged into Torchwood business. “Rhys, what is going on here? Who the hell are these people?”

           “We’ll answer your question, Mr. Woodstall,” Ianto stepped in smoothly, “inside. Let’s not give anyone easy targets.”

           Martha took my arm and pulled me along. “I need to treat the shoulder again, Rhys.”

           “I thought the A&E guy said I was all set.”

           “Don’t be silly. I’ve got something that will cut your recovery time in half.” I must have made a face, because she snickered. “Don’t worry. I can personally guarantee it’s going to work as advertised. No surprises.”

           “Casting aspersions on Martha’s abilities, Rhys?”

           Everyone turned towards the stairs as if pulled by strings; some things never changed, and Jack’s flair for making an entrance was obviously one of them. There he was, big as life, twice as handsome, and three times as dangerous. He still wore the RAF coat, but Ianto’s influence was plainly visible in the perfectly tailored trousers, heather green jumper and polished half-boots. Expertly cradled in the crook of his elbow was the baby.

           I was surprised to find I was glad to see him.

           “Nope,” I answered his sarcastic little challenge, “just your equipment.”

           “Are you angling for a demonstration?”

           “Now, boys,” Martha said, not quite succeeding in stifling a giggle. “If you keep this up, I’ll exile you to the barn with the other stallions. Come on upstairs, Rhys. The sooner I can treat you, the faster you’ll heal.”

            “Wait a bit, Martha. Jack what are you going to do with the baby?” I looked down at the pretty little girl in his arms.  “Hello, there… We need to give her a name.”

            "She has one. Meet Eowyn Rose Harkness-Jones.” He tickled her under the chin and she chuckled and grabbed at his finger. “Rosie, this is your uncle Rhys.”           





	8. Chapter 8

            “What surprises you the most? That Jack and Ianto would want to adopt the baby or that Jack is a Tolkien fan?”

             I twisted around to look at her. She had marched me into my own bedroom and ordered me to strip to the waist and lie down. She removed my bandages carefully; the flow of air over the wound made my skin tingle unpleasantly. Someone had left a medical bag on the floor. From it she took a box the size of a small book. It didn’t have any controls that I could see, but as she ran her palm across the top it started to hum. She waited until the sound became a low thrumming, like someone plucking the same string on a bass over and over again, and then placed it directly on top of the wound. I had expected it to be cold, but it felt strangely like warm flesh; it stilled the tingling and relaxed the muscles.

             We chatted as we waited, catching up with each other’s lives. We had only met a couple of times during the time she had worked with Gwen, usually over beer at the pub, and never really exchanged more than a few sentences. She was sharp-tongued and funny, and remarkably easy to talk to. We slipped easily into more personal ground; we spoke of Tom and Gwen, and how we had both wanted children – and that brought us in roundabout fashion to Jack’s announcement.

             “Martha, I mentioned my spending time in America, right?”

             She pushed me down again. “Talk but keep flat, unless you want to end up with a hump. I’m joking, you git! It just needs a little more time. Now, then. Yes, you mentioned it.”

             “There’s this trainer I know. He has this saying, _don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining._ Why do I get the feeling Torchwood is trying to piss on my leg?”

             She sighed. “We’re not, but…” She left the comfortable armchair she had been using and came to sit on the bed next to me. “Jack said I should tell you if you asked. For obvious reasons we can’t tell the Woodstalls some of the background on this.”

             I caught myself nodding. Amazing how quickly Torchwood habits returned.

             “We had been investigating the weevil sightings but weren’t getting anywhere. Then John Hart came looking for us. Down, Rhys, dammit! I know you have a very good reason to hate him, but just listen, all right? John had been working as a courier. He made a couple of deliveries to a very discreet, very expensive fertility clinic. Being John, he made friends with one of the technicians and she gave him a tour. Turns out one of the things Time Agents are trained to do is to analyze and evaluate the uses of unfamiliar technology. Jack says John was the best at it. What he saw sent him back to Cardiff at a dead run.”

             She removed the box. I sat up so I would be able to look at her face. Martha was good a lying to strangers, but I had a hunch that she found it difficult to lie to people she considered friends.

             “What did he find?”

             “An operation using alien tech to combine incompatible strands of DNA to produce human-alien hybrids.” She hugged herself, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if she were chilled. “Rosie’s not just a human baby with some weevil genes clipped on, Rhys. _Her mother was a test tube and her father was a knife._ That’s a quote from a science-fiction novel by Robert Heinlein. A story about a world in which Artificial Persons are engineered as slaves to the ‘natural-born’ humans. Faster, stronger, more intelligent, but still slaves.”

             “Sounds like _Blade Runner._ ”

             “Similar concept.”

             “Are you telling me that little girl is a…. a replicant? With an expiration date?”

             “Not that, although we can’t be sure.” She took a deep breath. “There’s more. John managed to smuggle out some samples. Several blastocysts that had been discarded because they were not viable. Each one had up to four strands of human DNA as well as weevil genes. All the human DNA strands were traced back to Torchwood One.”

             “I don’t understand.”

             “Torchwood policy has always been to keep blood and tissue samples of all its employees. It’s insurance against alien diseases, mostly. Sometimes the only way to save someone’s life is to engineer a vaccine specifically for him or to clone new blood and tissue to replace diseased or damaged one.”

             “It’s also a good means of identification in case of horrific death.”

             She nodded. “Yes. Originally, all samples were kept at Torchwood One. When Jack took over Cardiff he decided to keep our samples at home.”

             I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Gwen was not involved in this, then. Her blood and tissue was safe somewhere under the Plas. I couldn’t have borne to see Gwen’s eyes in the face of a strange child.

             And then it hit me. It must have shown on my face, because Martha nodded.

             “Yes. Jack and Ianto both had tissue samples at Torchwood One. So did Lisa Hallett, my cousin Adeola, and a couple of thousand others."

             “But Jack’s DNA would be different, wouldn’t it? A scientist would notice.”

             She smiled. “Jack said you were good.”

             “Rosie?”

             “Tosh is still running tests, but the answer to your question is yes. Technically, Rosie is the child of seven parents, including two separate strains of weevil, but about sixty percent of her is Jack and Ianto.”

             “That can’t be a coincidence.”

             “Very, very good. We don’t think it is. All the blastocysts John brought us used pieces of Jack’s nucleotide strand sequences to anchor the other genes. One of the blastocysts used DNA from Alex Hopkins, another Torchwood Three leader and a good friend of Jack's. Whoever is doing this is using Jack’s DNA to create a completely new race. And he's trying to force Jack's hand by breeding children carrying the DNA of people he loves.”


	9. Chapter 9

We found everyone sitting around Woodstall’s unofficial conference table – the oak-plank kitchen monster that could probably sit twelve at a pinch. The sight of Jack Harkness calmly bottle feeding a baby while being fed a sandwich by his partner made my eyes sting. It was so much what I had wanted with Gwen; simple domesticity without aliens, or explosions, or scientists straight out of a bad horror movie running around creating mix-and-match races. As our eyes met damn if he didn’t know exactly what I was thinking and his own eyes blinked rapidly before looking away.

Part of me wanted to resent him for having what I had lost, but what would have been the use? Torchwood could take everything away from him; from what Gwen had told me, it already had, more than once. Let the poor bastard be happy. He probably deserved it six times over.

They had left two chairs for us between Jack and Euan. I noticed Euan had already ushered Martha to the one next to him. I looked forward to his reaction when he found out that the lovely doctor was well and truly vaccinated against flirting by years of exposure to Captain Jack Harkness. I grabbed a scone and poured myself a fresh cup of coffee from the laden sideboard and plunked myself down next to Jack.

“Give her over,” I said as he put down the bottle.

“She needs to be burped.”

“No. Really? And me with all those sisters-in-law, and cousins, and friends popping them out like rabbits and I wouldn’t know that.” I put a kitchen towel over my shoulder. “Give me my niece.”

He passed her over without comment. I propped her on my shoulder and rubbed her back. “Hi there, Rosie. You and I, we’re going to have fun. I’m going to teach you to ride horses, and take you hill climbing, and lend you a shoulder to cry on… that’s it, cariad, let it all out… when your mean old tads are being too strict about staying out late. And I’ll take you to Ascot, and Longchamps, and the Kentucky Derby, and I’ll teach you how to bet properly so you can pay your own way through uni.”

The sudden silence made me look up from Rosie’s blissful face. Everyone was staring at me. Andy was openly smirking.

“What? I would do the same for all my nieces and nephews.”

“We’ll hold you to that,” Jack said. “Euan, did your people find anything?”

“Other than Mrs. Jones seeing the van? Not really. A couple of reports of sheep missing, but that’s not unusual around here. No strangers around. The only non-local is old Mr. McKenzie and he’s been visiting every year for the past twenty.”

“Who is he?” Ianto asked.

“Retired professor. From Aberdeen. Mushroom expert. Like I said, he’s been around since I was twelve or so.”

“All right. We still have the question of who brought the baby here and how Ollie was involved.”

“Tons of dirt roads and hill trails around here. Anyone could have just walked. The second part’s more difficult. Ollie was as honest as the day. He wouldn’t get involved in anything wrong.”

A small movement from Thomas caught my attention. Where Euan tended to spill outwards, Thomas was a quiet man who did his thinking behind a blank face. Over the years, I had learned to read the signs.

“Thomas?” I said as neutrally as possible.

He started to drum on the table then caught himself and pulled his hand down to his lap. “Do you trust these people to tell us the truth, Rhys?”

I heard Ianto’s soft whuff of breath. “I don’t think that’s the right question, Thomas. Do I trust them to always tell me the truth? No. I do trust them with my life. What they do, Thomas… They protect us from things that scare me stupid, and they do it because they think it’s the right thing to do. So if you know anything, please tell them. It could be the most important thing you do in your whole life.”

He kept silent for a few more minutes, then stood up and walked out of the room. I looked at Euan, who shook his head. A few minutes later, Thomas walked back into the kitchen. He was carrying a small bag made out of a shiny fabric.

“Rosie is not the first baby left at Woodstall.” He started before he even sat down. “Twenty-five years ago, our Mum found a woman in the woods. She had been beaten horribly. She was a foreigner, Mum said she couldn’t understand English nor Welsh. She had the baby with her, and this small bag. She thrust both of them at Mum. Mum said it was like she was begging her to keep the baby safe. The woman died and Mum brought the baby home.”

He took a deep swallow of his coffee. “You have to understand, Mum was going to call the police. But… well, at the time, the local constable was…”

“A jackass,” supplied Euan. “A little toad with ambitions. People gave him a wide berth and handled things themselves when they had to.”

“Yeah. Anyway. When Mum got home, Tad told her there had been a plane crash over St. David’s way. Three people dead. Mum told him about the baby, and how the woman had to have been in the plane. They looked in the bag, and, well… what they saw… they decided not to call the police. Mrs. Jones’s daughter, Annie, had had a still birth a few days before and was in a bad way. She had been widowed a few months before and losing the baby nearly drove her mad. They took the baby to her. Mum said it was like the good Lord had intended it, because she took that baby in her arms and never looked back.”

“Ollie?” Andy asked.

Thomas shook his head. “No. Ollie’s brother Mike. Mike Greene.”

“How come I didn’t know this?” Euan said.

“Because Mum and Tad kept it a secret. Tad only told me right before he died. Because of the bag.”

“Is this Mike Greene still around here?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. “ I answered.” He’s a groom, works with our best horse. But he’s away. He goes on holiday in the spring. Every year.”

Jack reached for the bag, studying it thoughtfully. There were no zippers or ties. It was made of a light material that wasn’t either leather or silk but looked a bit like both.

“Mum said it was open when the woman gave it to her but once she closed it she couldn’t figure out a way to open it again.”

“No. No, she wouldn’t have.” Jack had gone pale and tight-lipped. He ran his fingers down the side of the bag until he found something and pressed. “Here.”

The bag opened. Inside there was a small pouch, a handful of round metal chips, and a baby blanket, red with whipcord stitching around the hem and some embroidery in one corner. Jack picked up the pouch and spilled the contents in his hand. The diamonds winked merrily.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Euan.

“Mum and Dad were keeping it for Mike when he turned thirty. Tad said it was about the right time, when men really starting thinking with their heads and not with… well.”

Ianto ignored the diamonds and picked up the metal chips. “Memory?”

“Yeah.’ Jack said. “We’ll need to get it to Tosh. Thomas, I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to borrow Rhys for a few days.”


	10. Chapter 10

            The cog door rolled back and I could see into the Hub. I felt a superstitious shiver run up my spine. If I went in, I was back in Torchwood. Not that I had ever been an official member, but I had been drawn in so often I probably qualified for a pension. This time, it wouldn’t be just helping out the wife; I would be choosing to become part of it, and no matter what Jack had said to Thomas there would be no going back to my old existence.

            In the end the choice was made for me by a beautiful whirlwind in skyscraper heels who threw her arms around my neck, pushing me off balance. I fetched up with my back against the wall, hugging her for all she was worth.

             “Let the man breathe, Tosh,” Andy quipped. “I think Jack needs him alive for now. You can kill him later.”

             She stuck her tongue out at him. I was struck by the change in her. The shy, closed-up woman I used to know had blossomed. This Tosh was all open laughter and quick movement, not a shy bone in her whole body.

             “Listen, Tosh,” Andy said, sounding a little nervous, “I’ll go and pick up…ah…”

             “They didn’t tell him, did they?”

             “Nope. Hey, don’t look at me like that, it wasn’t my idea.” He headed back out the garage door. “Back soon.”

             I waited until Tosh looked at me again. She seemed a bit nervous. “Tosh?”

             “Let’s go sit down, all right? Jack and Ianto are stopping to pick up some lunch and Martha is going over the things you brought back from the farm.”

             Before starting for Cardiff, Andy and Martha had ransacked Ollie’s and Mike’s rooms, taking anything and everything they could use as evidence. In the meantime, Jack, Ianto and Euan had set in motion a nation-wide search for Mike. I had been sent off to pack a small bag – just for a few days, Jack said to Thomas – and then bundled into the lorry with Andy and Martha.

             Toshiko led the way to the sitting area. I noticed there had been a few changes – new furniture, and the desks were arranged differently – but the place was basically the same. The whispery shwoosh of water falling into the basin served as background for the beeps and whines of equipment most of which I couldn’t recognize. I could still see the greenhouse where Gwen had once caught Jack and Ianto… well, let’s just say when Gwen told me about it she was bright red with embarrassment but couldn’t stop laughing. The archway to the right of the couches led down to the medical area, where she had bled to death but not before managing to kill Jack’s brother.

             And Jack bloody Harkness was messing with my head again. Nice to know _some_ things never changed.

             “Rhys…” Tosh touch on my wrist brought me back. “I don’t think Jack was trying to…”

             “You read minds now, Tosh?”

             She laughed. “No need. You looked up at his office and got that Gwen look in your eyes. Let’s just get on with it, all right? It’s not… pleasant for me to talk about it.”

             “Then don’t.”

             “It’ll be better out in the open.” She took a deep breath. “When Owen died, I went a little crazy. Jack and Ianto had each other, but I felt... abandoned, somehow. It didn’t help that the bastard pretty much told me he loved me as he died. Jack tried to rein me in, but…" Her hands fluttered upwards, palms up. “They settled for keeping me safe. Eight months later I found out I was pregnant.”

             I managed to keep a straight face only by biting down on my cheek until I saw stars. Whatever she saw when she looked at me must have reassured her, because she gave me a shy little smile – the old sweet, uncertain Tosh smile I remembered.

             “At first I was over the moon. Everything was going to be fine, you see. I would have my own family and everything would be fine.” She rubbed her temples. “Of course, it wasn’t. As the pregnancy progressed I got worse and worse. By the time I gave birth I just wanted her as far away from me as possible. I didn’t care if she lived or died. I just wanted it never to have happened. I was borderline psychotic, I think. Jack and Ianto were at the end of their rope, so Jack did the only thing he could think of.”

             “He called the Doctor?”

             She laughed until she was gasping for breath. “Oh, you know him so well. Exactly. The man in the blue box swept in and took me away. I think it was a blessing for everyone.”

             “How long were you away?”

             “Five years. Two of them in New Earth, under the care of… that’s a story for another day, I think.” She laughed at my confused expression. “Timey-wimey stuff. The TARDIS travels in space and time. I was away for five years and came back in a year. You see…”

             She stopped at my upraised hand. “Don’t try to explain that, please. I’m still recovering from getting shot and you don’t want a relapse.”

             She laughed again. “Fair enough.”

             “What happened to the baby?”

             “Ianto and Jack adopted her.” Her smile nearly wobbled off her face. “It’s funny. By the time I got back they were all settled in as a family. Jack had even insisted on a civil partnership so that everything was taken care of, from insurance to inheritance. Or so he says, but the rest of us suspect he just wanted to tie Ianto down while he had the chance. They’re beautiful together,” she said, her voice full of small regrets. “I’m auntie Tosh and that’s how it should be.”

             I squeezed her hands. “So, this other niece of mine, what’s her name?”

             “Ah…”

             Suddenly I knew what was coming. When I said _I would do the same for all my nieces and nephews_ , Jack had said _we’ll hold you to that._ Of course they would have.

             “Ianto wanted to remember them. He named her Gwenhwyfar Eugenie. So of course we call her Gwen.”


	11. Chapter 11

              Once in a while, the Universe, God, Fate, or whoever will grant you a perfect moment. One of my top five was the gobsmacked look on Jack’s face when he swept into the Hub, arms full of pizza boxes, to find me at one of the workstations, little Gwen on my knee, explaining to her the fine points of steeplechasing and poring over the racing calendar.

             “Papa! Papa!” she shrieked, running full tilt to throw her arms around his waist. “Uncle Rhys is going to take me to the races, and teach me to ride a pony, and everything! I’m going to be a famous ama… ama…”

             “Amateur,” I prompted.

             “Amateur jockey! Isn’t it great?”

             He gave her a one-armed hug. “Sure is, sweetheart. Here’s Tad now. Why don’t you help him set the table and tell him all about how Uncle Rhys is going to teach you to control a big beast about a hundred times your size and weight?”

             “More like five hundred.” Ianto said sedately as he gave me an expressive eye roll. He was carrying Rosie in one of those weird kangaroo pouch things. “Papa would love to keep his baby wrapped in cotton wool until she’s thirty-five. Come on, poppet. There’s someone I’d like you to meet before we go upstairs.”

             I grabbed the pizza boxes out of Jack’s hands. “Go with your family, you great big pillock. You don’t want to miss this. I’ll take care of the table. Conference room?”

             He nodded, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He was completely focused on the three people on the couch. At that moment I really, really hoped for an afterlife, because I wanted Gwen to see her two best friends so happy.

             I found Tosh in the conference room, doing who knows what to the computer. She made exaggerated sniffing noises and ran into Ianto’s butler’s pantry, emerging a few minutes later with plates and cutlery.

             “Here we are. We’ll wait on mugs until Ianto gets here.”

             “He’s still the designated coffee guy?”

             “Oh, yeah. Nobody touches the coffee machine.”

             Martha and Andy came in, arguing quietly but fiercely about something. It was amazing how comfortable Andy seemed; the competent, if a bit pedestrian, policeman had become… whatever it was Gwen had become, right before her death: someone with a purpose larger than themselves. Not for the very first time, I wondered what the hell plain old Rhys Williams was doing mixed up with all these heroes.

             Lunch with an energetic, bright seven-year-old can be both fun and tiring. Lunch with an energetic, bright seven year old with her mum’s brains, her tad’s vocabulary, and her papa’s uncontrollable curiosity was exhausting. By the time little Gwen’s tad had settled her down on the couch with a dozen books and her little sister dozing away peacefully beside her on a buggy, all the adults were ready for a nap. Ianto refilled all the mugs with strong, sweet coffee.

             “Bless you,” I said, sipping. “Mate, you aren’t going to survive two of them.”

             He returned to his place at Jack’s right. “We’ll manage.”

             “Better you than me!”

             He and Jack traded a small smile that sent a chill up my spine. I’d have to watch myself. Those two were up to something.

             Jack sighed as he leaned forward, elbows on table, fingers steepled. “Rhys, I’m sorry you have been dragged into this. You wanted to be shut of Torchwood, and I don’t blame you. If I could I would retcon you again and leave you to your peaceful life. But I have a feeling I’m going to need you, and for this I’d draft the Devil himself if I had to.”

             He activated the virtual keyboard in front of him. The hypnotic flowing designs on the large screen faded away to show a star system. “That star is called by humans Zuben El-Akrab, or Gamma Librae. It’s a pretty nondescript place, really. Its only claim to fame is that its fifth planet, which the locals called Archangel’s Rest, was the site of the largest recorded experiment carried out on human beings by other human beings. Or, to be exact, by one human being.”

             The screen changed again. This time it showed an elderly man seated on a big armchair and surrounded by children, obviously a family portrait.

             “Meet Doctor Aloysius Granger. Doctor Granger believed that humans were meant to be the supreme species of the Universe and he saw in interspecies breeding a conspiracy to stop humans from reaching their ultimate potential. He also believed that humans could be optimized through complete discipline and judicious culling. He had even worked out a detailed plan.”

             “In other words, a complete nutter,” Andy said.

             “And would have remained an obscure one if one doctor Markus Zabrini hadn’t been desperate.” The screen changed to display the photo of a man sitting behind a dingy desk. He looked exhausted, but there was something about his eyes that made you want to look away quickly. “Doctor Zabrini was the chief medical officer of the Archangel colony. Things were going to hell very fast. Archangel’s Rest is the kind of planet that requires starship loads’ worth of terraforming equipment in order to make it livable, and the colonists had spent their last penny in just getting there. Doctor Zabrini decided that if he was going to save the colony he would have to cull the herd, leaving behind only the strong and fit, and then follow Doctor Granger’s plan to optimize it.”

             “Dear God,” Martha whispered.

             “Yeah. And the hell of it was, it worked. Over a period of four hundred years, Archangel’s Rest rose to be the dominant power in that sector of the Galaxy. Its citizens called themselves Archangels and lorded it over eighty or ninety planets. Then, within sixty years it all collapsed. Historians and archaeologists are still debating how and why. Several groups of survivors managed to escape to other planets. They scrubbed their pasts clean and started new. One of the groups settled in the Boeshane peninsula.”

             From the looks in everyone else’s face this was a pretty significant piece of information. Jack smiled at me. “I was born in the Boeshane, Rhys. I’m a descendant of the Archangels.”

             “And you are… optimized?”

             “Sort of. By the time I came along, a great many intermarriages had put paid to the purity concept. My mother had G’lan ancestors, for example. But I did inherit certain physical advantages from them, yes.”

             “And you think whatever is happening now has to do with these Archangel people?”

             “The bag the Woodstalls were keeping for Mike? I recognized it immediately. It’s a crèche carrier. The embroidery on the blanket identified the child as number thirty-seven of the Weir crèche. I think the crashed plane was actually an escape pod that went through the Rift somehow. Mike is probably the last surviving purebred Archangel.”

             “And you think whoever is cloning, or whatever it is, babies like Rosie would want his genes? Wait. How would they know? About who he really is?”

             “You know, I am definitely going to draft you permanently. You're wasted in the horse business. I think someone else survived the crash. I think the Archangels are trying to revive their Empire.”


	12. Chapter 12

           “Anything I can do to help?”

             Martha looked up at me. “Actually, yes. I need someone to just sit and listen while I think out loud.”

             “That I can do.”

             After lunch, Ianto had taken the girls home to their minders, a retired UNIT sergeant major and his wife. Tosh and Andy, bickering like teenagers, settled at their respective work stations, she to keep on digging for information on the fertility clinic, he to run background checks on everyone who lived or worked in the area around Woodstall. Jack waded into the politics of it all, holding conference calls with very high ups from the government and the United Nations. Martha had retreated to the medical bay to finish reviewing autopsies and other documentation from her counterparts at UNIT. I wandered about for a while, snooping into odd corners.

             The cells were empty; Ianto had mentioned at lunch that their resident weevil, Janet, had died of massive respiratory infection during the winter. That thought led me to the vault where Torchwood agents – and Janet, and Gwen’s murderer Grey – now rested in their freezer drawers.

             One section had been replaced by a simple, elegant slab of black marble. Photos of Gwen, Owen, and two other women were mounted on it. The plaque under Gwen’s, after giving her name, her Torchwood number, and her years of service, said _buried at St. Winefride’s Churchyard, Gwaelod-y-Garth._ When I breathed a sigh of relief I realized that somewhere in the back of my brain had lurked the fear that Torchwood had given me an empty coffin to bury and kept Gwen’s body in a freezer as per regulations.

             “Penny for your thoughts,” Martha said.

             I shook my head. “Not that valuable, really.”

             “You were downstairs.”

             “How can you tell?”

             “Your eyes are a bit red,” she pointed out gently. “When was the last time you went to St. Winefride’s?”

             “Right before Christmas, why?”

             “Church officials decided it couldn’t keep it open. Nor enough parishioners anymore, everyone goes to the larger church in town. Jack bought the property. We contacted the families we could find and helped them relocate the remains if they wanted to.”

             I stared at her stupidly. “Nobody contacted me.”

             “No. New graves would have appeared from time to time and you wouldn’t have given it another thought.” She took a sip from the mug by her elbow. “Jack had Suzie Costello and Lisa Hallett cremated and buried on the other side of the plot from Gwen. Tom is nearer to her, under the willow. Jack decided to make Gwen’s grave the center of the new official Torchwood cemetery. None of his people in freezers, he says.”

             “He really did love her,” I blurted out.

             “Oh, yes. He loves all of us in different ways.” Her eyes sparkled with suppressed glee. “Jack has this insane capacity to love that gets larger the longer he lives.”

             I gave her a narrow-eyed _don’t mess with me_ look. “You know something.”

             “A number of things. That’s why I went to medical school for.” She turned back to the work station. “Ready?”

             I resigned myself to ignorance. Whatever Martha knew about Jack’s future she wasn’t going to talk about it. “Ready.”

             “I’ve been looking at information UNIT sent me. They did the cleanup after Canary Wharf. There wasn’t much recovered from the medical labs. The cryogenic chamber where blood and tissue samples were kept was essentially vaporized. Whatever equipment survived was sent either here or to Torchwood house. As far as I can tell, everything UNIT found and removed is accounted for.”

             “Martha…” I hesitated. “Never mind.”

             “Spit it out, Rhys.”

             “I guess I don’t know enough. My only contact with Torchwood has been here, and I don’t see Jack as letting this sort of experimentation go on…”

             “Jack wouldn’t, but Torchwood One before Canary Wharf was a very different sort of animal. Oh, well done, Rhys! Yvonne Hartman would have done anything if she believed it would help the British Empire.”

             “What empire?”

             She giggled. “Yvonne was an old-fashioned Victorian girl. Her goal was to re-establish British supremacy in the world, cost be damned. An army of genetically enhanced soldiers would sound just brilliant to her. “She started tapping away at her keyboard. “Here we are.”

             “What are you looking for?”

             “Money, Rhys. Money. Medical research at this level costs a bundle. If Hartman bypassed the usual protocols, she had to have been funneling cash into it somehow. Let’s see….”

             I watched her work. She concentrated completely on what she was doing, sometimes chewing on her lower lip as she leaned in to read fine print. She had the kind of face that would get more beautiful as she grew older, big gorgeous eyes and a smile that could set off wildfires. And the way she moved, all precision and efficiency, was somehow incredibly sexy… Whoa, Rhys, I told myself. You are lusting above your station.

             “And here we are, boys and girls!”  As she spun on her seat to face me again, she caught me staring, and her smile grew wider and much more intimate. “Why, Rhys. Were you… watching me?”

             I could feel everything above my collarbones get bright red. “Ah. Yeah.”

             “Good. Hold that thought until this is all over and let’s revisit it then.” She pointed at the screen. “I think I found us the money trail.”

             “Where?”

             “Right in plain sight. Doctor Alan Sullivan’s lab was studying ways of adapting alien technology to field hospital triage. There’s no way in hell that should have been swallowing up nearly sixty million pounds a year.” She activated her comm. “Tosh, is there an Alan Sullivan showing up somewhere at your end?”

             “Sure is. Doctor Alan Sullivan is the senior partner at the fertility clinic. Why?”

             “He used to work for Torchwood One, supposedly on triage issues. You’ll need to run some checks on him. In the meantime, I’ll…”

             “Martha.” Ianto’s voice cut in. “You’ll have to postpone whatever you are planning to do or pass it on to Tosh or Andy. We just got a call from Woodstall. Mike Greene is back.”


	13. Chapter 13

            Mike sprawled on Mrs. Hill’s armchair, absently twirling one of her crochet needles between his fingers. If Jack was right, here was the last purebred genetic descendant of an immensely powerful human society. All I saw was a gangly young man who hadn’t quite yet grown into his own body, or, if truth be told, his mind. In old country parlance, Mike was _a little slow_. Mike’s only gift was for horses.

             Thomas and Euan were sitting at the table, mugs in hand. I nodded in passing as I went to talk to Mike.

             “Hey, Rhys.”

             “Mike. I’m sorry about Ollie.”

             “Yeah.” He shook his head. “I’m going to miss him, you know? He always made me feel like we were really brothers. When we were kids he used to take blame for things I did so mam-gu wouldn’t smack me around. Did you know that?”

             “No, I didn’t.  Mike, this is my friend Jack. He wants to ask you a few questions. All right?”

             “Sure.”

             Jack pulled up one of the kitchen chairs and sat down knee-to-knee with Mike. I moved away to stand next to Ianto. He was focused on Jack and Mike; the faint narrowing of his eyes told me he was seeing something I wasn’t. Martha, who had been busily pushing buttons and twisting dials in her scanning wand thing, had a similar look on her face. Curious, I turned around to look. It took me a few minutes, but I finally saw it.

             Mike looked like Jack.

             It was what my mum would call _a family air_ rather than an actual resemblance. They were both tall and long-legged. Mike’s hair was a little darker than Jack’s and his eyes a bit lighter, but the bone structure underneath seemed to have been carved to the same pattern. The difference was that where Mike was clumsy and uncertain, Jack was graceful and self-assured. In horse terms they were both thoroughbreds, but Mike was a yearling and Jack was a stallion in prime condition.

             “Mike, where were you this week?”

             “Went walking with Bevan and Harry, round Garigill. Never been climbing in the Pennines, we thought it would be fun.”

             Euan looked a bit confused. “Mike, mate, Bevan and Harry say you weren’t with them.”

             “That’s crazy.” Mike dropped the crochet needle. “Why would they say that?”

             I touched Euan’s shoulder to get his attention and shook my head. There was something about the way Jack was sitting, leaning close to Mike, his hands darting in to touch Mike’s hands and arms with quick little pats that Mike didn’t even seem to feel, that made me realize there was more to this than an everyday police interrogation.

             “Mike,” Jack said again, “where were you this week?”

             “Walking with… at the lab” p _at, pat_ , “ you know, with Be…” _pat_ “for tests…no, I was in Cumbria, I was,” _pat_ “but I saw her and….No!” 

             He threw himself backwards, huddling into the armchair with his arms around his knees like a child. Thomas jumped up and launched himself at Jack, only to be body-blocked by Ianto.

             “What the hell did you do to him?”

             “I didn’t do anything,’ Jack said tiredly, “but someone certainly has. Mike has had some serious neuroconditioning work done, probably over a long period of time. Martha?”

             Without a word, she moved to kneel at Mike’s feet, taking his hands in hers. “Mike? My name is Martha and I’m a doctor. I promise I’m not going to hurt you. Can I check you out a little?”

             “OK,” Mike’s voice was hesitant, but he unwound from his huddle. “You’re going to use needles too?”

             Martha didn’t react. “No. Needles are stupid. I’m just going to run this over you, like this. All right?”

             “Cool.”

             It took less than a minute and then Martha stood up. “I think you should have something to eat, Mike. Aren’t you hungry?”

             “Yeah!”

             “Mrs. Hill left a pie in the butler’s pantry, Mike.” Thomas said. “Go ahead and get yourself a big piece.” He waited until the boy had left the kitchen. “What the hell is going on here?”

             Martha answered, but she was looking at Jack. “Someone is suppressing that boy’s development. There's a massive  neurotransmitter imbalance and his hippocampus has been chemically inhibited.”

             “Yeah.” Jack poured himself a cup of coffee and sipped thoughtfully. “Physically he’s normal. It’s not unusual for… his people to have extended childhoods. Mentally, though, it feels like they've thrown a blanket over him. From the depth and strength of it, I'd say they had to start working on him when he was still a child.”

             “Can it be reversed?” Ianto asked.

             “Yes,” Jack said. “They're using a chemical cocktail used to control violent criminals.  It flushes out of your system after a while.”

             “So that's why they need to see him every year.” I guessed. “Booster shots.”

             Thomas and Euan stared at us as if faced with escapees from the local madhouse.

              “There's no way anyone could have done something to Mike when he was a kid,” Thomas said. “His mum was really careful with him. He was never out of her sight.”

             “Except in the afternoons,” Euan murmured. “His mum went to work and left him and Ollie with the old bat. And she hated Mike. Don't give me that look, Thomas, you know she did.”

             “The old bat?” Ianto asked.

             “His grandmother. Mrs. Jones.”  Euan sat up as if someone had prodded him on his behind with a quirt. “The lady who didn't see anything the night Ollie was killed.”


	14. Chapter 14

         The Jones farmhouse could have come straight off a tourist postcard: a two story white-washed cottage with a stone barn a short distance behind it and a perfect cottage garden just coming into spring bloom, all surrounded by a waist high stone fence, with a hill rising behind it dotted with old pear and plum trees.

             Jack swung the SUV to a stop across the gate, blocking access to the house. I wondered what the ever prim and proper Mrs. Jones would think of having her beautiful perfection invaded.

             After knocking several times and getting no answer, Jack pulled a slim leather wallet out of his pocket. “Euan, Rhys, you know the area. Search the barn and the grounds. Ianto, Thomas, you’ll take the ground floor. Martha, with me.”

             “Hey!” Euan objected. “You can’t just break into someone’s house!”

             “I think you’ll find that under Torchwood authority I can do pretty much whatever I need to do.” He extracted a pick from the wallet. “But if you go now, you can say with a clear conscience that you didn’t see me.”

             Euan made a sound that could have passed for laughter if you didn’t know him. “You’re everything they say you are, aren’t you? Come on then, Rhys.”

             I followed him along a flagstone path leading to the back of the house. Roses lined both sides of the path and climbed up the cottage wall. They were not yet in bloom, but primroses, daffodils, and wild violets had made their appearance. Immediately to the right of the cottage’s back door there was a neat kitchen garden with tiny greenhouse, and a beautiful old pear tree with a wrought iron table and chairs set close to it.

             The path joined a similar one that started at the back door and led to the barn. The building looked impressively solid. It had been built flush against the hill with doors at either end.

             “Ollie and I used to play here on rainy days.” Euan pushed door nearest us open. “Wait until you see it.”

             He started to go in and I pulled him back. “Jesus, Euan, we’re looking for a killer here. Can you at least look where you’re going before you rush in?”

             He flushed, then nodded and pulled out his gun. “Ok. Light switch is to the left. I’ll go in first.”

             We did our hero thing and found ourselves smirking at each other in a deserted barn. I looked around. The building had been framed with thick wood beams which had been left exposed. Every inch of the wood had been carved. Trees, animals, flowers, castles, cottages, dragons – a fantastic jumble done in gorgeous detail.

             “Ollie’s grandfather made furniture, a lot of it for our place. This was his hobby.”

             "It’s like using a cathedral to store junk.” I looked at the piles of mouldering stuff. “At least they left some space to maneuver. You take that side, I’ll take this one.”

             “What are we looking for?”

             “I think that’s in we know it when we find it territory.”

             We worked in silence for a while, but I could almost feel his need to ask questions. “Out with it, Euan.”

             “One of my uni mates is a captain in UNIT’s counterintelligence branch. Are the stories he tells about Harkness true?”

             “I’d say multiply everything he’s told you by ten and you’d be closer.”

             “Wow. According to Harry, he was notorious for his… ah… escapades…”

              I understood what was driving the question. In spite of his brilliance, Euan was never going to have the career he deserved; his inability to suffer fools and what his superiors called his _alternative lifestyle_ would keep him a village constable all his life. “You planning to ask for a job?”

             “Maybe.” He nosed about in an old trunk. “Is it possible, you think?”

             “I wouldn’t know. But if you’re really interested, ask Ianto, not Jack.” At his inquiring hum, I explained. “Jack’s first instinct will be to say no. Ianto will make you understand exactly what it is you’d be getting into. Then he might decide to talk to Jack about it.”

             “Harry says that UNIT has a book going on how long the marriage will last. Lots of people have already lost money.”

             “If I can get in on the action, I’ll take the _until Ianto Jones dies_ bet.”

             “Lucky bastard.”

             “Yeah, Jack’s very lucky.” He straightened up, rubbing the small of my back. “There’s nothing here. What’s next?”

             “The orchard on the other side of the hill.”

             We left the grounds proper and followed a dirt path up the hill. There were roses here too, the five-petalled kind my mum called dog roses, climbing over the rocks. The ground was squishy underfoot, so oversaturated that footprints disappeared at few moments after you lifted your foot.

             It was a short climb and soon the ground sloped down again into a pocket valley with a small apple orchard taking up most of the space. The path widened into a kind of road, obviously so that a small truck could be driven close to the pickers at harvest time. To one side, rocks had been grouped to create a little sitting area around an open fire pit.

             Someone was slumped over the rocks. Even from a distance we could see the blood running down into the ground beneath.

             We ran down, tripping on loose pebbles and sliding on mud. Euan got there before me. He knelt next to the body and turned it over. It was Mrs. Jones. She was alive, but it was obvious even to me that she wasn’t going to survive the severe beating she had taken.

             “Mrs. Jones,” Euan picked her up and cradled her gently. “Who did this to you?”

             Her eyelids flickered and she looked at us. Her eyes already had that empty look dying people get at the end. She tried to say something and finally managed a whisper. “Under the rose.”


	15. Chapter 15

          I called Ianto from the orchard to tell him about Mrs. Jones. He asked me to come back to the house while he and Jack went to deal with the usual police business. I passed them on the way up and gave them a short report on our earlier search of the barn and grounds. Jack nearly snarled when I mentioned Mrs. Jones’s last words. He didn’t have to say anything; from what I had seen, Mrs. Jones had a real passion for roses. Searching under each and every one of these bushes was going to use up a lot of time and manpower.

             Martha met me in the kitchen, tea mug in one hand and a gun on the other. She grimaced when I looked at it and raised my eyebrows at her.

             “I hate the things, but Jack insists everyone be competent in using them.” She returned it to the holster at her hip. “He’s right, damn it.”

             “I wasn’t commenting on the gun,” I said. “You’re Torchwood. It’s more the whole look.”

             “Whole look?”

             “All you need is a swishy coat.”

             She looked down at herself in surprise. She was wearing a pale green jumper, dark trousers, and half-boots.

             “You prat.” She laughed. “I’m just comfortable.”

             “Oh, no, Doctor Jones. Comfortable is the last thing you bring to mind.”

             “I’m glad.” She smiled at me, and then abruptly turned serious. “Can you stand it, Rhys? You lost one wife to Torchwood. If we… I love what I do.”

             I kept a straight face but part of me wanted to burst out in song or something equally silly. She had said _one_ wife, not _your_ wife, implying the smallest possibility  of a chance that the darling Doctor Jones was thinking long term.

             “A few years ago, I think I would have said something different, but now? People die. Tom died in a plane crash. My favorite cousin died when she slipped on a wet sidewalk and hit her head on a cobblestone. Someday Ianto will die and leave Jack behind… Hell, we will all die and leave Jack behind. You can’t stop death. All we can do is love and hope for the best.” I took her hand. “So, this being Torchwood and all, are we absolutely positively certain that we’re not under the influence of a sex-crazed alien? Or some sort of aphrodisiac from a planet halfway across the galaxy?”

             She giggled. She _giggled!_ “I don’t think so.”

             “Well, then…”

             I pulled her close. If the first kiss was a bit tentative, the second one more than made up for it. Duw, but Doctor Jones could kiss! She was soft, and she tasted of coffee, and mint, and something that was just Martha, and for the first time in a very long time I felt like living, not just existing.

             Just as we were learning to survive without much oxygen, someone behind us cleared their throat. Martha tightened her arms around my neck to keep me in place – no guilty jumping apart for Doctor Martha Jones, thank you very much – and gave me a final lingering press of lips on lips before we turned to face Jack, Ianto, and Euan.

             “So, Martha,” Jack slow drawl warned me that the troublemaker in him was itching to come out and play, “find anything? Medically speaking, that is.”

             She contented herself with pinning him to the wall with the haughtiest stare I’d ever seen. “If there is anything more advanced in this place than corn plasters and paracetamol, I can’t find it.”

             Euan picked up a small towel from a stack on one of the shelves and moved over to the heavy metal kitchen sink under the window to try and wipe some of the mud off.  “If I may ask, what are we looking for?”

             Jack gave Martha a tiny nod. “Let me ask you a question first,” she said to Euan. “Do you every remember Mrs. Jones taking Mike anywhere? Doctor’s appointments, maybe?”

             He shook his head. “She was a recluse. I think I’ve seen her in town four times in twenty years.”

             “That’s it, then. What was done to Mike as a child requires intensive work using some very advanced equipment. There had to be a permanent setup somewhere here.”

             “It was a long time ago,” Euan said. “I don’t think Mike came back at all after he moved to Woodstall. So maybe they dismantled it afterwards… You know, this doesn’t add up. How could Mrs. Jones keep something like that hidden from her own daughter?”

             “More to the point, when did Mike start taking annual holidays?” Ianto asked.

             “About seven or eight years ago.” Euan dried his hand and neatly draped the towel over the edge of the sink. “And at first he didn’t go every year. Damn. It’s got to still be up and running, doesn’t it?”

             Jack nodded. “That seems likely. And that leaves us with Mrs. Jones’s last words.”

             “I was thinking about that on the way back,” I said. “The ground around here is solid rock with maybe a couple of feet of topsoil.  Even if they had managed to carve out a space under the house, they would have needed lots of construction equipment. People would have noticed and remembered, especially the rest of the family!”

             “So what can _under the rose_ mean?” Ianto looked around the kitchen. “The woman was obsessed with roses. Look around. Rose patterned china. Rose-coloured curtains. An antique toothbrush holder with tiny gold roses. Even the firescreen for the parlour fireplace is carved with roses!”

             Jack’s startled look passed unnoticed when Euan let out a shout worthy of a rugby fan seeing Wales demolish England in the finals of the Six Nations.

             “Of all the stupid… Come on. I know where it is!”


	16. Chapter 16

            We chased Euan down to the barn. He flung the door open and stood in the center of the space, turning in a slow circle as he examined the walls.

             “Euan, mate, what are you doing?”

             “Remember I told you about playing here on rainy days? One time, Mrs. Jones caught us. We were looking at the castle… There’s a big panel that has a castle with knights and dragons and a lady’s garden full of flowers. Mrs. Jones went barmy. She grabbed Ollie and shook him until I thought his head was going to come off his neck, and she wouldn’t stop until he screamed at her that he would tell his mom about the castle, and you’ve never seen anybody let go so fast in your whole life. She shoved us out the door and the next day Tim Allen came and installed padlocks on all the doors and windows. So where is… there!”

             He ran up to a pile of boxes and started tossing them aside. We all pitched in until we had cleared out a sizable area at the back, where the barn abutted the hill. Jack looked at the panel and gave a low whistle.

             “Amazing. That’s Kidwelly Castle, isn’t it?”

             “Yeah. Ollie’s tad-cu came from there.” Euan ran his hands across the panel’s surface. “Let’s see if we can find a rose.”

             The panel covered about half the back wall. We each took a section and went over it with a fine tooth comb, only to end up disappointed. Ollie’s grandfather had carved over one hundred species of flowers on the panel, but not a single rose.

             “Damn.” Euan shook his head. “I was so sure!”

             “Don’t give up yet.” Ianto was rubbing his hands over a cluster of five-petalled flowers.” Look here.”

             “That’s not a rose.”

             “Technically, no. This is Hibiscus Syriacus. Its common name is Rose of Sharon.”

             “Jesus, Ianto,” I laughed. “The things you know.”

             “Well, Megan Evans liked flowers and I liked Megan Evans…” His pressed gently on one of the petals. “Ah.”

             Something made a clicking noise and the panel swung out, revealing a narrow doorway. A few seconds later, overhead lights came on automatically. The room beyond was small, more like a converted storage room than something meant for a medical office, but from where I was I standing I could see a reclining examination table, a cabinet filled with boxes and vials and a bookcase. Next to the table was a chair and a sort of stand. On the table was a large envelope.

             Ianto motioned to Jack. “I can’t see anything, but…”

             Jack brought his forearm across his chest and pressed a few buttons on his wrist strap. A thin beam of pure white light swept across the room several times. At one point it stopped high up near the ceiling and turned bright yellow. Jack pressed another button, and we heard a soft pop.

             “A motion activated camera,” Jack said. “It’ll look like an insect crawled in and short-circuited it.” He looked around. “It’s a bit cramped in here. You’d have thought they would have done a better job of it.”

             “I think it’s a case of using an existing space,” I said. “We’re not as famous for it as the Cornish, but we Welsh did a fair bit of smuggling over the years. Most houses and barns in this area had a hiding place or two. I guess Mr. Jones built this in the traditional style.”

             “Makes sense. Ianto…”

             “Jack.” Ianto held out the envelope. “You need to see this.”

             Jack turned the envelope over. Where the address should have been there were only two lines, done in exquisite copperplate calligraphy. _Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood._ Jack gave a funny little sigh.

             “It really was her, then,”

             We were all looking at him as he opened the envelope. Inside there were a stack of what looked like printouts from an EKG machine, a photograph, and a folded note. He opened the note, glanced at it, then passed it on to Ianto. He took a much longer time looking at the photograph, and then flipped it over so we all could see it.

             It showed a group of young men and women, outdoors, sitting on a blanket. It was spring; lilacs bloomed everywhere, and if you looked closely enough you could see tiny purple and white violets poking up through the grass. The girls were wearing long flowery dresses with straw hats. On the left was Jack, with his arms around a pretty redhead. They were smiling at each other, paying no attention to the camera.

             “That’s Mrs. Jones, isn’t it?’ Euan asked.

             “Her name was Celie De La Roche. Her father was an outspoken opponent of the Vichy regime. Her family was whisked out of Paris by some British agents one step ahead of the Gestapo. She never forgot her debt. She was recruited by Torchwood right out of University. She was a biologist supposedly working with alien flora that had washed through the Rift.” His usually expressive face was blank as if he were reciting the facts of a stranger’s life. “We met and fell in love, or at least I did. I found out later I was her biology project. She was to get pregnant so they could have a… biological sample to experiment on. It never happened. Turns out my DNA is different enough to make pregnancy difficult. Not impossible. Just difficult.”

             Euan kept looking from the photo to Jack and back again without saying a word. It was obvious he was trying to reconcile the vibrant young couple looking into each other’s eyes with the old woman lying dead in the orchard and the man in front of him – a man who seemed not to have aged a day in fifty years. All I could think was _welcome to Torchwood, mate. From now on it just gets weirder and weirder._

 


	17. Interlude

           “There you are.”

             Ianto tossed his jacket carelessly over the back of a chair. “Martha wanted to talk.”

             Jack raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

             “Don’t try the innocent routine on me, Jack Harkness.” Ianto toed off his shoes and pushed down his trousers and pants. “You’re matchmaking.”

             “Not really. I just tossed them together. I will admit I’m little surprised at how fast it developed.”

              “I hope it doesn’t burn out just as fast. And I’m telling you right now, if this attempt at playing Dolly Levi goes pear-shaped, Jack, you’ll deal with the fallout yourself!”

             Deciding that silence was definitely the better part of valour in this instance, Jack contented himself with watching his partner get ready for bed, which mostly consisted of stripping down to skin and brushing his teeth. For someone who spent ridiculous amounts of time and money maintaining an impeccably prim and self-contained public façade, Ianto could be quite disorderly in private. Well, in the bedroom anyway, and thank the Vortex for his lewd, lascivious, lecherous, lusty, lovely…

             “You have that look in your eyes again.”

             “I was thinking of adjectives.”

             “Yes, and they all begin with _l_. Tosh should never have given you that damned thesaurus for Christmas. Even if you whined like a brat about it.”  Ianto sat down on the edge of the bed. “So why haven’t you had your way with me yet? I saw your eyes light up when Thomas showed us to the room before dinner. It’s the sort of bed that inspires you.”

             “It is, isn’t it?” Jack caressed the satiny duvet as he smiled naughtily at him. “Maybe I was just waiting for you to have your way with me instead.”

             Ianto took Jack’s hands in his. He knew Jack had been shaken by the discovery of Celie de la Roche’s involvement. Ianto had to admit to feeling a little rattled himself. Torchwood had beaten the belief in coincidences out of him. The idea that a ship carrying the last pureblood archangel would crash almost literally in the backyard of the woman who had tried to use Jack in an obscene experiment of her own was the sort of thing that set his conspiracy radar humming.

             “We’re going to have to dig deep into Celie’s life,” he said quietly. “This is not a coincidence.”

             “I know. I called Toshiko and Andy while I waited for you.”

             “And you thought about her.”

             “Yeah, I guess.  She was the first person I really felt deeply for after Estelle. When I found out what she was doing…”

             Ianto leaned in and kissed Jack gently. He could imagine how devastated Jack would have felt. Ianto had lusted after Jack, obsessed over Jack, cared deeply for Jack, but he had fallen head over heels in love with Jack the moment he had realized that under the galactic superstud surface Jack’s deepest desire was for family.

             Tosh had left with the Doctor, and the two men faced each other over the little Moses basket. The look in Jack’s eyes as he stared down at the newborn girl had Ianto discarding all their carefully made plans without a moment’s hesitation. He picked up the baby and offered her to his lover.

             “This is Gwenhyfar Eugenie Harkness-Jones,” he had said, his voice breaking just a little. “Gwenhyfar for obvious reasons and Eugenie because it is the female version of the greek Eugene, from which comes Ougein, from which comes Owen.”

             The tears in Jack’s eyes and the passionate kiss that followed told Ianto everything he needed to know. Jack had insisted on the partnership, and the three-story Victorian in Pontcanna with the walled garden and the ground-floor flat for staff, and the Euro Disney holiday the year Gwen had turned five – Uncle Doctor and Uncle Mickey had come to Cardiff to help out while they hared off to Paris for a week – and all the trappings of normal married life. At least as normal as it could be, considering what they did for a living.

             Finding out that Celie de la Roche wanted to use his child as a lab rat would have sent Jack into a mad rage. Even now he seemed to be teetering on the edge of an explosion. Ianto knew he needed to bring Jack back, center him in the present again.

             “Lift up.” Ianto peeled off Jack’s pyjama bottoms slowly, taking the time to explore his partner’s hip bones and thighs with lips and tongue. “Scoot over.”

              Knowing exactly what Ianto wanted, Jack moved to the center of the bed and turned to lie on his left side, left arm under his head. Ianto grabbed a t-shirt from his overnight bag, wrapped a pillow in it and placed it in front of Jack.

             “Prissy.”

             “Polite.” He bit Jack’s shoulder in retaliation for his mockery. “A good guest does not leave a mess for his hosts to clean up. Leg, please.”

             Chuckling, Jack bent his knee and placed it on the pillow. Ianto reached into this bag again and retrieved a small tube of lube. Warming some between his fingers, he separated Jack’s buttocks and started to prepare him. His other hand roamed all over, stroking and petting.

             “You have the most gorgeous arse,” he whispered. “Perfect. And it’s all mine.”

             “Not fair.” Jack’s breath hitched as Ianto’s fingers entered him. “I want to touch you too.”

             “Nope.”  Ianto kept up the gentle massage as he stroked in and out. “Tonight it’s all for me.”

             “But you’re doing all the work!”

             “I don’t think you understand how much I love having you like this. Pliant. Receptive. Mine to do with as I wish.”

             He withdrew his fingers and fitted himself to Jack’s back, entering him slowly until he was as deep as he could go. He stretched out so they touched at every possible point, gripping Jack’s left hand with his above their heads and matching Jack’s leg position. His right arm wrapped around Jack’s chest, hand resting over Jack’s heart.

             “Like this.” He rocked his hips, punctuating every few words with a shallow thrust. “This is who you are now, my lover, my partner, the father of my children. Everything else doesn’t matter, the past doesn’t matter.”

             Jack’s answer was to reach back and try to grab Ianto’s hips to force the pace; Ianto intercepted him and brought the wandering hand back to rest on Jack’s chest, fingers tangled with his. For a moment it seemed as if Jack would rebel, then, with a soft sigh, he melted against Ianto, and they relaxed into a gentle, unhurried rhythm.


	18. Chapter 18

I woke up disoriented and with my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. I had been dreaming, but the sense of it had been startled out of me by the alarm clock and all I could remember were random images of weevils with little girls’ faces running through a burning city.

             Five days. It was hard to believe it had only been five days since Ollie’s death. Five days since Torchwood and all it represented had swept back into my life. Five days, and I was already – how had Ianto put it once? Taking the change in bad dreams.

             I looked at the clock. Five-fifteen. In the ordinary days of my ordinary life, I would get up and make the first pot of coffee. Then, cup in hand, I would make a quick visit to the stables to go over the day’s schedule with Patrick, the trainer, and Kai, the head groom. Thomas was probably doing that already, but he couldn’t cope for long, not with everything else he had on his plate.

             Jack had said he needed me for this, and there had been a couple of hints that he had some sort of long-term plans for me, but in his usual infuriating fashion he was playing his cards close to the vest. It only remained to see whether I would dance to his tune.

             Well, I wouldn’t get my answers lolling about in bed. I got myself ready for the day and headed downstairs. The hallway smelled of coffee, and I could hear voices in the kitchen.

             I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn’t to find John Hart, _fucking John Hart,_ sitting at the kitchen table, drinking Woodstall’s coffee, and having a nice quiet chat with Jack and Martha.

             Martha stood up and started towards me. I couldn’t even look at her. Turning around I headed outside, through they yard, past the stables, to the training track. There were signs of life around me, familiar sights and sounds that should have been comforting. I leaned on the rail and tried to reassemble all the pieces that had been blown apart by finding the bastard who had brought my wife’s murderer to Earth being treated like a guest in my home.

             “Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t ask Thomas to kick you and your goddamned team the hell out of Woodstall land.” I didn’t need to turn around to know he was there. “And don’t say trust me.”

             “I will give you two.” His voice had all the warmth of a January night on the top of Yr Wyddfa. “First, as far as Woodstall Grange is concerned, I have enough authority to turn it into an UNIT camp. If your friend Thomas were to try to enlist the influence of his titled and influential relatives, there is the little matter of a stolen child and ten million pounds in unmarked, untraceable diamonds. And second, there is the question of how many memories would be safe to let you keep.”

             “You bastard.”

             “Only as much as necessary.” There was a silence as if he were considering what else to say. “Did Gwen ever tell you our unofficial motto?”

             “ _The twenty-first century is when everything changes and we’ve got to be ready._ ”

             “Most people assume that I mean that this is the century when humans come face to face with everything that’s out there. But something else is going to happen in this century, Rhys. Historians will call it the next great step for humanity.  Genetic mutations will appear and spread rapidly through all human populations. By the twenty-eighth century humans will look like you, but will be physically and mentally so different from you as to make them a completely separate race. Nobody has ever been able to pinpoint how it started. In my time the most accepted theory is that social and environmental stresses created a kind of genetic cascade. Accelerated evolution.”

             “And you think it’s because of some nutters with a superiority complex?”

             “Possibly. All I know, Rhys, is that some of these mutations will start appearing in medical records in about twenty years’ time. In human evolutionary terms that’s damn near impossible. And there is absolutely no trace in the historical record of any human or alien agency being involved. As far as we know, it was a totally natural development.”

             “So you need to figure out whether this Archangel thing is…what happened… or if you need to put a stop to it so doesn’t screw up the natural thing.” A host of gruesome visions flashed by. “What happens to Rosie then, Jack?”

             “Ianto and I have discussed it. If it turns out the existence of these children would endanger the time line, we will take them off planet. There are many places and times in the Universe where they won’t pose a threat. And we do have a friend who would be happy to provide transportation.”

             The casual way in which he said it nearly gave me a seizure. “You’re going to just up and leave?”

             “I’m not a psychopath, Rhys. These kids are innocent and they will need looking after.”

             I clung to the one word I could accept. In spite of my anger, I wasn’t ready to wrap my head around the idea of a world where Jack and Ianto weren’t around.

             “Speaking of psychopaths…”

             “Yes, he is. But we can trust him on this.”

             “Why?”

             “John’s people are master genetic engineers. In fact, that’s their planet’s primary source of revenue. Early in their history, they had some spectacular disasters when competing groups used the technology on each other. They have a strong social taboo about discussing the matter with strangers, but there are still certain areas of the planet that are totally uninhabitable. When the dust settled, the survivors enacted a series of ethical codes that makes the most draconian system of laws ever developed on Earth seem downright permissive, and they have lived by them for centuries. John is a liar, a con man, a thief, and a casual murderer, but he would die to protect a few of your cells from being misused.”

             “That’s…”

             “Difficult to believe? One of the things you’ll find, Rhys, is that out there morality is not exactly one size fits all. The idea that if you behave just as your momma taught you everything’ll be all right will get you killed faster than an airlock valve accident.” He started back to the house. “We’re having a briefing in half an hour. Be there. And by the way, Rhys, I should tell you that if you hurt Martha again I will strangle you with your own intestines and feed the corpse to piranhas.”

             I watched him walk away. There’s nothing like knowing exactly what to expect to make you feel welcome to your intended’s family.


	19. Chapter 19

           By the time I got back everyone was eating breakfast. The only empty seat was between Martha and Ianto; both of them had their laptops out and were working as they ate. Ianto looked blandly at me and offered me a plate of scones. Martha, on the other hand, kept her eyes focused on the screen, but she was fairly vibrating. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain myself. I needed to tell her how stupid I had been, except that, well, maybe I had the right to be angry.

           Not at her, but at Torchwood, or at least at Jack. Across the table John Hart was sitting between Mike and Euan. He looked back at me and there wasn’t a single expression on his face; neither amusement or shame, not a smirk or an apology. There was something, though, that reminded me of Jack, and because he had the information Torchwood needed, Jack had brought him back into my life. Surely I had the right to be angry at Jack Harkness?

           Duw. I couldn’t even make sense to myself. Best to concentrate on other matters until I could.

           “Jack,” I said tentatively, “I’ve been wondering… The weevil I saw. After everything that’s happened, it can’t be a coincidence that it showed up here the same night Rosie did, can it? It couldn’t have been hunger that drove it. I mean, I don’t think it touched anything. The horses were in a right tizzy but that was mostly because of the smell.”

           “We’ve been working on that,” he said. “We also need to know how Rosie got here and what Ollie was doing with her. Mike?”

           The boy shook his head. “I don’t know.  There’s something in here,” he tapped his head forcefully, “but I can’t get it out!”

           “Don’t force it, Mike,” Martha said. “Memories surface in their own time.”

           “I don’t think we have much of that,” he muttered.

           “Martha’s right. Let it go for now.” Jack beat a rapid tattoo on the table, then took a deep breath. “Thomas, Euan, you need to make a decision. If you get more involved in this, you’re enlisting in a war that has a good chance of getting you killed. If you walk away, you can live the rest of your life in blissful ignorance.”

           I sat there, mouth hanging open. Things really had changed if Jack offered options these days.

           Euan was shaking his head fiercely. Thomas looked at me. “Rhys?”

           I suppressed the urge to tell him to run as fast as he could. “I’m not the one to ask, Thomas. Gwen lasted all of two years, but she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. What we… they… do is important, but it is deadly.”

           “When they called me from London they said you were an anti-terrorist organization, but you’re not, are you?”

           Jack poured himself more coffee.  “It depends on how you define terrorist.”

           Euan grinned. “Let’s define them as coming from another planet.”

           “Then we are definitely an anti-terrorist organization.”

           “Stop taking the piss, Captain Harkness,” Thomas snapped. “What the hell does Torchwood do?”

           “We catch aliens.”

           “Aliens? _In Wales_?”

           I couldn’t stop myself from howling with laughter. Everyone turned to stare and that only made it worse. I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks and I was gasping for air, and I still couldn’t stop. I was shaking myself to pieces. When I felt Martha’s hand rubbing my back, I hid my face against her throat, inhaling the now familiar scent of spicy roses.

           “Rhys,” Thomas sounded a little scared. “Are you all right, mate?”

           I took a deep breath and tried to sound a little less like a madman. “Yeah. Sorry, Thomas. It’s just that that’s exactly what I said to Gwen when she told me. _Aliens? In Cardiff_?”

           “He is serious?”

           “Like a heart attack. That’s what they do, Thomas. They face off with some of the biggest monsters the Universe can throw at us. Most of the time they win.”

           “All right.” He turned to Jack. “I’m in, Captain. Whoever is doing this had the cheek to come into my house and kill one of my own. _I will not tolerate that_.”

           “Jack.” Ianto cut in, stopping Jack’s explanations before they began. “I have Andy.”

           “On speaker. Hey, Andy. Tell me we got something.”

           “We got something. Alan Sullivan, senior researcher at the fertility clinic, is an old Torchwood One employee. We spoke to several of the medical people who survived Canary Wharf. They hate his bollocks. The kindest epithets they used were secretive, paranoid, and arrogant. Unfortunately, they don’t know anything about his research. He reported directly to Yvonne Hartman. Doctor Edward Richardson, he says hello, by the way, is willing to swear Sullivan removed research files and samples from the biogenetics labs. He saw Sullivan running away, arms full of boxes, right during the battle. Refused to aid the wounded.”

           “Why the hell didn’t he tell UNIT?”

           “He says he did, but he never heard from the investigators. I looked into it. People were trying to secure stuff all throughout that day, so the investigators assumed Sullivan was doing the same.”

           “Time we paid a visit to doctor Sullivan.”

           “There’s more. That research you’ve had our resident geek genius do on weevil travel patterns has turned up something interesting. Picture coming through.”

           Ianto turned the laptop so we could all see it. The screen showed a CCTV shot of the back of a derelict building. A single bulb lit one corner. Near it, in shadows, but clear enough that we could see their faces, were a man and a weevil. I had never seen the man before, but I certainly could recognize the weevil.

           “That’s the weevil I saw in the woods, Jack.”

           “Are you sure?”

           “Yes. Unless that pattern of freckles or whatever on the cheek is common to all weevils.”

           “Nope. Freckle pattern is individual, almost as good as fingerprints.”

           “Ashadjalle.” Mike was leaning forward until he was nearly crouching on top of the table. “Her name is Ashadjalle, and she is my friend.”

 


	20. Chapter 20

In spite of being resigned to getting involved with Torchwood again, there were some experiences I would rather never have to repeat. Being driven by Jack was at the top of the list.

             Something about what Mike said had said pushed Jack into _head of Torchwood_ mode. He brushed aside Thomas and Euan’s questions and swept Martha and Mike away to the study.  Ianto started making phone calls to every government and international agency that needed to be put on alert; from what I could hear, he was on a first-name basis with half the upper echelons of the military and political hierarchies of several countries and the United Nations.

             It was Hart who took over the explanations without being asked. He was good at mixing truth and… well, he never lied, he just avoided the truth and changed the subject. I noticed he skipped over the same things Jack would have; there was no mention of mad Archangels trying to rebuild interstellar empires. He concentrated on the use of alien DNA on human children and encouraged Thomas’s plans to convert part of the compound into temporary quarters for however many children we could rescue. There was an honesty in him that seemed very much at odds with the psychopath I knew him to be, and I began to understand some of the things Jack had told me out by the track.

             Jack and Martha came out of the study looking grim. After a quick whispered conference with Ianto, we split into two groups: Martha and I to the SUV with Jack, and Euan, John and Mike to one of the Woodstall estate cars with Ianto. As Jack had said, in Torchwood there are no coincidences; he wanted to talk to me about something.

             It was only curiosity that kept me from having a breakdown as Jack threw the SUV into a skid around a downward curve. Finally, after another terror-filled fifteen minutes I decided to push back.

             “So, Jack, are you going to say something or are you hoping I’ll die of a heart attack and save you the effort?”

             “Can you use a gun these days?”

             “Hunting gun. I need to use it once in a while out here.”

             “That’ll do. I’m going to need you to protect Mike. Until the drugs wash out of his system his reactions are going to be unpredictable.”

             “All right.”

             He was quiet for a long time. I waited. There are some horses – and some people – that can’t be led or pushed. They can only be waited out.

             “It’s what Mike said about befriending the weevil. It tells us someone has taken creatures the equivalent of chimpanzees and made them intelligent enough to have conversations and form friendships with someone not of their group in about twenty-five years. When I get my hands on the bastards they’re going to wish they had died with their precious empire.”

             “But isn’t it a good thing in a way? Weevils are savage even to each other. Maybe a little intelligence would help with that.”

             “It doesn’t work that way, Rhys,” Martha said, laying a hand on Jack’s shoulder to forestall the coming tirade. “Intelligence is not enough to override instinct or even cultural conditioning. _Homo sapiens_ have been around over one hundred and fifty thousand years and have millennia of moral and ethical development and we still fall flat on our bums about half the time. The people experimenting with the weevils have crammed all those millennia into twenty-five years. We think that to do that they concentrated on brain evolution to the exclusion of everything else.  The weevils I autopsied had massively accelerated metabolisms, drastically reduced lifespan, and an autonomous nervous system so screwed up I don’t think there’s a medical term for it. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that these poor kids were in pain from the day they were born to the day they died.”

             I mulled over what Martha had said. “Jack, about those bastards… once we find them, I'll  hold them down for you, yeah?”

             “It’s a deal.”

             We drove the rest of the way in silence. The clinic was just outside Carmarthen, but distant enough to avoid crowding by the new suburbs and the industrial estates. It looked more like someone’s dream home rather than a medical facility. Even the stone walls with its ornate iron gates seemed meant more for privacy than security.

             “Here,” Jack handed me an earpiece. “It’ll connect you to our internal comm. One tap to activate, two to deactivate, press and hold to talk, three fast taps to shout for help. We’ll arrange for an implant later.”

             I popped it into my ear, tabling the discussion about implants until later. I tapped it once and a few seconds later I was listening to Toshiko’s voice.

             “…shows no signs of movement anywhere. There are four heat signatures inside, but they are stationary. The satellite visuals show nine cars in the parking area and what looks like several people sitting around a table, but no heat signatures. Something is really wrong, Jack.”

             “Can you open the gates for us?”

             “Please. I’ve taken control of the security system. The gates will open as you drive up.”

             We didn’t even slow down as we swept through the open gates and past a very formal rose garden to the parking area. Toshiko had been right. Several people were sitting around a table covered with the remains of lunch. Two of them wore uniforms, but neither one looked in our direction as we screeched to a halt in the gravel lot, sending up a fine mist of sand and rock.

             “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

             “Yes. Martha…” She was already out of the SUV and moving towards the table. John jumped out of the back seat of the estate car and chased after her. I started to follow, but Jack pulled me back.

             “”He’ll handle whatever backup she needs. Come on.”

             He opened the back of the SUV and lifted a false floor. Underneath was a bloody armoury. He pulled out something that resembled either a shortened rifle or a pistol with a very long barrel.

             “Here. With this switch in this position it works like a regular rifle. Flick it and it will fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. There’s two hundred and fifty bullets in that thing. Make them count.” He pointed. “You have your assignment.”

            I trotted over to where Mike sat in the back of the estate car. He was pale and shaking. He looked up at me.

             “I don’t like it here.”

             “Neither do I, mate.  But we won’t let anyone hurt you again, Mike. The needles and all that stuff, it’s over.”

             “Promise?”

             “Promise.”


	21. Chapter 21

           “Necks snapped, just like the five outside,” Martha said. “One quick twist. Whoever did it had training.”

             We’d found four more bodies in the reception area. The last one was that of the young technician Hart had befriended. Hart looked down at her, without any expression, but I noticed that he stroked her hair once, very gently.

             Jack sent Hart, Ianto and Euan to search the upper floors, while Martha, Mike and I followed him into the area behind the reception desk. It was divided into small rooms full of expensive-looking equipment. There was only one examining room, but it looked more like a torture chamber; or maybe it was Mike’s reaction that put you in mind of one. The boy backed away until he was pressed against the corridor wall, shaking with terror.

             “Mike.” Jack’s voice was low and soothing. “Rhys promised. We promised. No one in this place will hurt you again.”

             The reassurance seemed to get through because he drew in one big gulping breath and nodded. He peeled away from the wall and started to walk away, but he kept looking over his shoulder. It was as if he were expecting to see something or someone else. Crossing my fingers and praying I wouldn’t make it worse, I stepped a little closer to him.

             “Did you see Ashadjalle last week, Mike?”

             “Yeah. I heard her screaming and ran downstairs.” Mike’s lids drooped, but his eyes were moving rapidly. “There was so much blood, I thought she was dying, but they told me she was having a baby.  I tried to run in, but they dragged me away. They brought her to the room later. She was very tired and all she wanted to do was sleep.”

             “And the baby, Mike? What happened to the baby?”

             By now he was so deep into his memories that he barely needed prodding. “We stole it.  Ashadjalle told me what they did with the babies and the other mothers. It wasn’t right! They would bring the baby to the room so she could feed it every morning and evening, so the third night we waited until she left and climbed out the window. I wanted to go with her but they had given me the injection that morning and my head was feeling stuffed up again, so I found a phone and called Ollie and told him I was sending someone and to please, please help her. I sent her to Woodstall alone. She could move faster without me. Passyhk’alcyddh are good at that, you know.”

             “Pashi what?”

             “The literal translation would be _The Ones Who Rule Over All Who Pass Beneath Their Shadow_. The shorter version would be _Archangel_ _._ ”

             In spite of knowing it wasn’t directed at me, I couldn’t help but flinch at the Arctic flatness in Jack’s tone. I felt actually relieved to hear Ianto’s voice over the comm.

             “Jack. Upstairs, please. Dr. Sullivan would like to speak to you.”

             The first floor looked a lot more like someone’s home. There was a small sitting area at the top of the stairs, furnished like a model room in one of those design magazines Gwen had loved to look through. Three doors led to other rooms. One of the doors was open, and Euan was standing right outside, holding a gun like he meant business.

             The room beyond was set up as a very posh office. There was a man sitting behind the desk. He looked like the Woodstall scarecrow, all dressed up in borrowed finery that didn’t fit. Not that his clothes were anything but the best money could buy, but they just didn’t look his, somehow. 

             “You wanted to see me, Sullivan?”

             “Yes, Captain Harkness. First, I want to explain that I didn’t have anything to do with… with what’s downstairs. It was my punishment for losing Mr. Greene and the baby.” He was shaken by a coughing fit that rattled him in every direction, and he had to stop to sip some water from a bottle in front of him. “Gentlemen, I am going to reach for a button underneath my desk. I would appreciate it if one of you would come here and verify what I am doing. I would rather not die by gunshot wound.”

             Hart pushed Ianto away and stood next to Sullivan’s chair. “Tell me what you want to do and I’ll do it.”

             “There’s a button on the desk, right by my knee. Press it.”

             Hart aimed his wrist strap at the place. There was a soft hum and a bookcase on the wall to one side of the desk slid aside to show a closet-sized room lined with soundproofing panels. Inside were four hospital cribs.

             “My ransom, gentlemen. Or my redemption, if there’s any such thing. Four girls, all healthy, all mostly human, all carrying Archangel genes.” He coughed again. “I have wiped their records from all our databases. The only copies are on this disk.”

             “Who is behind this, Sullivan?” Hart loomed over the doctor. “You might be a decent enough gene-splicer, but you’re not the type to command an operation this size.”

             The doctor glared at Hart’s contemptuous description of his skills, but then subsided. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Hart. I am not. But I was strategist enough to figure out a way to use you.”

             “What do you mean?”

             “The man who commands this operation –your own words, Mr. Hart – has made it his business to know everything there is to know about Jack Harkness. He knew of your existence. He likes to talk late at night over a drink.” He shivered, coughing once again. “You must understand, I believed in what I was doing: creating an army that would defend my country against all threats. But McKenzie is utterly mad. He dreams of reviving his dead empire right here, right now. I needed a way out, and when you showed up here, I made sure you saw what I wanted you to see.”

             “Why made you change your mind, Sullivan?” Jack asked.

             “After Canary Wharf, I had no place to go. I knew enough about you to know you would not tolerate the sort of thing Yvonne had me doing. McKenzie came to see me and offered me a chance to continue my research. It wasn’t until I was here that I realized what he really wanted. I convinced myself that as long as all I did was work with genes and give Mr. Greene his annual checkup, I wasn’t responsible for anything McKenzie did. But then, a few years ago he started bringing the weevil females here to give birth, and I knew I was. I was personally creating the blastocysts that were being implanted on those poor girls. Most of them died in childbirth with their babies. Their bodies were too immature to carry a fetus to term. And McKenzie would discard their bodies and take the dead fetuses and start all over again. Genetic material, he called it. God." 

             “And  that's how this McKenzie would revive his empire?” Hart scoffed. “Using weevil genes?”

             “Exactly.” He snorted at our blank stares. “Don’t you understand? According to McKenzie, the Archangels were never many in number and they were constantly tinkering with their DNA, so often one planetary population could not interbreed with another. As their empire grew, they had to rely on mercenary armies to control their subjects. They knew their history. A small group decided the best solution would be to make certain all the Archangel populations could interbreed again. They created a gene cocktail that would retroengineer Archangel DNA and released it in the general population. Something went very wrong. Ninety percent of the population died off within fifty years. The rest… well, you’ve seen them in the streets of Cardiff, Captain Harkness. A weevil is what’s happens when a pregnant Archangel gets a dose of McKenzie’s gene cocktail.”


	22. Chapter 22

            “Tea, sir?”

             I grabbed the steaming cup gratefully. The tea was strong and sweet and I hoped it would keep me awake. It was past midnight, and it was likely I was going to be up for a lot longer.

             After talking to Sullivan, Jack had sent Martha, Mike, and Euan back to Woodstall with the babies and all the medical and research files. Euan passed the job interview he didn’t know he was having by calling a friend in the Carmarthen police and getting a two-car police escort without once mentioning Torchwood.  The rest of us crammed ourselves into the SUV and headed for the nearest UNIT base, which turned out to be quietly tucked away in a corner of the RAF base at St. Athans. Once there, Jack, Ianto and Sullivan disappeared into the Colonel’s office, while Hart and I were left to cool our heels outside, watching a stream of official-looking people come and go.

             Jack’s temper had gone from bad to terrifying, all the worse for being perfectly under control. Ianto stayed one step behind him, always within reach, looking as grim as Jack himself. I was missing something important, and I didn’t have Martha to ask.

             “Jack thinks there’s still an active conspiracy.” Hart looked up from whatever he had been doing to his wrist strap. “He’s probably right. There’s no way McKenzie could have continued his work after Canary Wharf without help.”

             “Are you reading my mind?”

             He sighed. “No. Your face. You probably couldn’t play poker to save your life.”

             “I guess. Can I ask you a question?” I took his wave as a yes. “This weevil thing. Does it mean Jack, Mike and the weevils are all related?”

             “It’s a bit more complicated than that. Archangels believed they were the pinnacle of human evolution, so they, in effect, _froze_ their genome but couldn't keep from tinkering with the details.” He snorted contemptuously. “Arrogant and stupid to boot. Trying to retro-engineer their reproductive capabilities was the equivalent of hitting ice with a sonic grenade. Jack was lucky his people got out early. The weevils are the last survivors and probably have a very low birthrate to go along with all their other miseries. The one I feel sorry for is Mike Greene. As a true purebred Archangel his DNA is so specialized that he can’t have children with any female other than those of his clan and sept. That’s why McKenzie was breeding only females. He needed mates for him.”

              “Duw. No wonder Jack is pissed off. So now what?”

             “Now the hammer falls. The old gent with a cane who came in about an hour ago? That’s Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He’s the grand old man of UNIT and half the soldiers would follow him through hell. His nephew is colonel here. I’ll bet you a hundred quid that we are on the move before sunrise.”

             He was right. At about four-thirty in the morning an UNIT convoy assembled by the gates of St. Athans. Jack rode with the colonel in the lead with the Torchwood SUV directly behind. Ianto briefed us as he drove, having refused Hart’s offer to drive with an expressive eyeroll. It seemed that although McKenzie had kept Sullivan pretty much in the dark as to his whereabouts, the doctor had gathered enough information for Tosh to be able to pinpoint his hideout.

             “He’s holed up in an abandoned drift mine near Treherbert.”Ianto said. “The satellite images show twenty or so heat signatures in the tunnels and six in the colliery buildings.”

             “How are we going to get the weevils out of the tunnels?” Hart asked. “Hand to hand in an enclosed space could get very messy. These are kids we’re talking about.”

             “The Colonel arranged for the use of one of the new payload delivery drones the RAF are testing. We’re going to flood the tunnels with a combination of weevil spray and ether. It won’t knock them out completely but it will make them very pliant.” Ianto grinned and I was startled to see how savage he could look. “Our business is with the other six bastards.”

             “Sounds good.” Hart pulled out what looked like an antique gun but probably wasn’t and checked it thoroughly. “Do we know who’s working with McKenzie?”

             “Oh, yes. Toshiko has been working miracles all night. Jack has contacted Buckingham Palace, as some fairly influential people are likely to be taking extended vacations effective this morning. Her Majesty reminded Jack that she still owns a couple of islands in the Orkneys so desolate that even terns won’t nest there. She's also summoning her senior ministers.” He grinned again. "Jack says that she can deliver a  right royal bollocking. I think he speaks from experience."

              “This seems so…organized.” I  said. “Even…well…”

             “Anti-climactic? Well-planned? Safe?” Ianto shrugged. “We’re parents. These days we take risks only when we have to. Torchwood springs enough surprises on us.”

             “Disappointing, isn’t it?” mocked Hart. “The dashing heroes reduced to homebodies.”

             “As it should be.” I said firmly. “Now hush and let Ianto drive in peace.”

             We arrived at the mine about an hour after sunrise. There was no attempt at subtlety. The perimeter fence was mowed down by the armored vehicles and soldiers poured through the grounds. They fanned out, weapons at ready, using the rusting equipment and collapsed brick walls as cover. We moved after them.

             “They had to have heard us coming,” I muttered. “There should be some shooting by now. Why isn’t there any shooting?”

             Almost immediately someone started firing from one of the first floor windows of the nearest building. One of the shots nicked the edge of the wall I was crouching behind.  I felt bits of brick pepper my head and neck. Hart sent me flat to the ground with a hard shove to the small of my back. I let out a faint scream as my half-healed wound protested. 

             “Getting shot twice in four days is overkill even by the heroes’ code, Rhys, so pay attention. Move when I move and stop when I stop and for the Mother’s sake stop asking the Universe questions. It seems in the mood to answer you.” He pointed at a rusting lorry.  “Over there. And remember, we have the soldier boys to do the hard work.”

             We ran across the yard to crouch behind the lorry. The sniper seemed to be distracted; the soldiers were returning fire. I heard several things buzzing by overhead, and suddenly there was the sound of glass breaking and a huge boom inside the building. Smoke poured out the windows; even at a distance it could make my eyes water.

             “And that should be that,” Hart said. “That stuff will eat right through a gas mask.”

             He was right. A few seconds later the door of the building opened and several men came staggering out, holding their arms over their heads. They were roughly forced to the ground by the soldiers, searched, their hands cuffed behind their backs, and then pulled back on their feet. I examined their faces. One of the men resembled Mike and Jack in the same way they resembled each other; he could have been their older uncle or cousin. I looked at Hart, who nodded in agreement. We had found McKenzie.

 

            Jack walked past all of us to stand in front of him. McKenzie said something to him in a language full of zzzzs and odd clicks. He was fair making a speech when Jack interrupted him with something short and clipped. Hart winced and then laughed. Jack said something else and turned away. McKenzie shouted at his back, but Jack ignored him and kept going until he was standing with us.

             “I see you haven’t lost your talent for literate description,” Hart said, still giggling. “I’ll have to remember that next time I come across a Judoon.”

             “Where’s Ianto?” I asked.

             “Seeing to the Weevils,” Jack said, and for a moment all the responsibilities he carried were written plainly on his face. “We still need to figure out what to do about them.”

             He set out towards the entrance to the mine tunnel, and we followed him. The tunnel was slightly below and to one side of the building, opening directly into the hill. Old rail tracks, all torn up, still led inside. As we arrived we saw Ianto and some soldiers leading out the weevils. Looking at them, Hart skidded to a stop so suddenly he nearly tripped himself.

             “Jack, the boiler suits. Does Torchwood hand them out?”

             “Yeah. Weevils seem to like being covered. They were always breaking into houses and shops to steal clothing. At one point they started getting really aggressive, so I asked Torchwood One to provide us with some sort of simple coverall we could just hand out. Once or twice a year Ianto and I take a big box of them to one of their hideouts and leave it there. They also help with the illusion that weevils are just men wearing masks.”

             “The original request must have gone through what’s her name, Hartman, right? Because what they’re wearing… they’re fatigues, Jack. Archangel navy conscript fatigues. Wrong fabric and color but... McKenzie must have ordered them especially.”

             Jack swore – the first time in my life I had heard him use obscenities – and started to turn back towards the prisoners. Hart stopped him.

             “Never mind him.” He tapped his wrist strap. “While I was waiting at the base I contacted my Nest Mother and told her about this. She thinks it’s best if I take them home. Before you say no, hear me out Jack. This lot is highly intelligent but genetically unstable. They might live at best another decade. We have places at home where they can live unmolested, and medication to help with the pain. If they manage to breed a stable population, highly unlikely but possible, we have colonies to establish them in. You know they can’t stay here, and with us they have a chance.”

             “How do we get them there?”

             “I’ll use my wrist strap to create a containment field, and then use yours to boost its power. I can move them in two batches.” He gave an exaggerated sigh at Jack’s doubtful face. “Jack, it’s me. I can do this jump in my sleep!”

             “All right.”

             I drew a huge breath and let it out slowly.  “So we’re done here?”

             “More or less,” Jack said. “You’re in a hurry?”

             “Oh yeah. Can you get a ride back to Woodstall? Good. I’m going to get the SUV keys from Ianto. I have to find Martha and get to apologizing!”

 


	23. Chapter 23

You look stunning. I knew you would.

_Any woman would in this. Where did you find it?_

Oh, well, you know, I was doing the odd bit of cleaning around the TARDIS…

_Doctor._

They were my mother’s wedding robes. Some of them. I didn’t think you’d want the other six layers.

_Eight layers? How did they manage?_

By sitting down a lot. Gallifreyan weddings were boring.

_They’re a family heirloom…_

You’re all my family now. Besides, they’re going to get a lot of… oops.

_You’re not going to tell me, are you?_

You know I can’t.

_Never mind, Doctor. Whatever happens Rhys and I will deal with it together._

That’s my Martha.

 

***********

 

She looks like a princess in a Rackham illustration.

_That she does. Our own little princess bridesmaid looks rather special herself._

She’s managed to keep clean and undamaged through the ceremony and the photos. I can’t guarantee what’ll happen at the reception. There are horses around.

_Just make sure she takes off the hair ornaments. Spiderine emeralds are rather rare._

Are you telling me they are real?

_Everything is real, Ianto. Martha is wearing the gross national product of several small countries. To be crass about it, the Doc’s family must have been loaded even by Gallifreyan standards._

Speaking of the Doctor. He seems to have developed a rather odd fascination with our eldest daughter.

_And she with him. You’re not going to be an overprotective parent, are you?_

Me? I can’t wait to see what you’ll do eight years from now when she tells you how she’s going to spend her gap year.

_I’ll give her my blessing. I will. I will! After I scream at both of them for a few hours._

 

***********

 

I never thanked you for saving my life. Back at the mine.

_Oh, that. Don’t worry about it. That was in the way of paying a debt._

You don’t owe me anything.

_I owed Gwen. When I managed to disarm the bomb Gray had attached to my wrist strap I went back to the Hub. She was on the steps to the medical bay, you know, and I was trying to stop the bleeding. I didn’t hear Gray come up behind me. She shot him before he could put a knife in my back. The last thing she said to me was_ _you owe me a big one, and  you better pay up or I’ll come back to haunt you._

And you’ve been feeling an invisible breath on the back of your neck all this time, yeah?

_Something like that._

 

***********

 

No, thanks. I have been up for three days. I don’t want to embarrass Martha or Rhys by falling asleep even before they cut the cake. Interesting custom that, and one that would get you in trouble…

_Doc, focus a bit here. What did you find out?_

For one, that your mainframe is rather an interesting thing, you know. She’ll wake up one of these days and the Vortex knows what will happen…

_Doctor!_

Sorry, Jack. Everything is fine. It seems the little ones were meant to be here all along.

_You’re sure?_

I took a quick trip down the time line and there are no Reapers showing up at any point for the next two hundred years. The girls are safe. Their genes will be a major contributing factor to the evolutionary leap, but it’s not the only one.

_Thank you. I wasn’t looking forward to uprooting them, not to mention Ianto._

He would do very well anywhere you went, Jack.

_I know. It’s me. I don’t want to leave. Sooner or later I’ll lose all of them but for now I’m going to enjoy this life, these people._

Loving mortals breaks your heart, Jack.

_So what’s your excuse?_

***********

 

I can’t believe you took McKenzie away.

_As long as he stayed here he was a temptation to all the idiots looking for shortcuts. Back home he’s been put to work._

Doing what?

_Helping terraform a very hostile little planet that shows great promise._

And you trust him?

_Martha, do I look like I come from trusting stock? My Nest Mother rides him like a farm mule. But it’s either that or execution._

Jesus, John. That’s a little excessive, isn’t it?

_He committed the worst sort of crimes. Genetic experimentation on an unsuspecting population. Slavery…_

What do you mean, slavery?

_What do you think Mike and the girls would have been? They were only the first step, Martha. Breeding stock for the next generation._

I see. Why are you keeping him alive, then?

_Jack believes in punishment in this life, not the next._

 

***********

 

I will make her happy, Jack.

_You had better. It’s not only me you would have to face. And he can be ruthless in ways I can’t even imagine, much less imitate._

He’s very important to her.

_Not as important as you._

Sometimes I feel a little… Gwen had you, Martha has him.

_Does it matter? They both chose you._

***********

 

Everyone’s having a good time.

_It was good of you to host the wedding._

We’ve been needing things to celebrate, haven’t we? Besides, it’s Rhys. Family.

_You’re going to miss him._

He was an excellent farm manager, but I think Miss Jones will do. Keeps it in the family, so to speak.

_So it’s settled, then?_

Well, I was surprised she wanted to move out in the middle of nowhere after her London life, but she says she’s tired of pushing numbers for corporations. We’re lucky to get her, really.

_Yes, Tish is quite a catch._

Yes, she is. So, Ianto, I noticed, Tish and Jack…

_They went through some terrible things together and remain very close. But she’s not in love with him, if that’s what you mean._

All right, then.

_A warning, Thomas.  You know how protective Jack is with Martha and Toshiko? Double that for Tish._

Rhys told me about the piranhas.

_Keep it in mind._

***********

 

What do you say we run away, Mrs. Williams?

_Good idea. Mr. Williams. With Jack and the Doctor giving swing dancing lessons, nobody is looking at us. Avoid all the rice._

Do we even need the rice?

_No. The little stick had two lines._


End file.
